#tbt: X-Men #78 – The Crimson Dawn saves Psylocke once again and resurrects her, this time with an all black psi-form and the ability to command the shadows of the Psionic Plane, which allow her to go undetected by the Shadow King. Betsy feels extreme guilt over what she has done and devises a plan and confronts the Shadow King, who fails to tempt her to his side. The Shadow King stretches his powers to the maximum to infect every mind on Earth. Psylocke discovers that the Shadow King has left his nexus exposed and uses her shadows to trap him, but only as long as she focuses her telepathy on him, which means she can never use her powers again or else he will be free. Written by Joe Kelly and Art by German Garcia. Read full summary here.
“For so long, my life has been out of control. Chaos and serendipity, wrapped in insanity. I have suffered, I have lost. Not just my life, but my very soul, my self. But no more. Now I know who I am.” – Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Braddock, daughter of Otherworld, mutant, telepath, telekinetic, defender of the realm and, above all, X-Man.
5 comments:
So is Joe Kelly's endgame: get Psylocke out of the X-books. How would he do it? By using SK as a plot device to neutralize her powers, rendering her inactive to the team... or so Kelly thought. Writers who favored Psylocke would later bring Psylocke back into the fold... especially Rick Remender who exploited this little episode (the rivalry between SK and Psylocke) to give Betsy one of her most compelling storylines during his run on X-Force. Gotta love the irony...
Agreed. Joe Kelly just ended up getting Betsy her own arch-enemy. Up to Psi-War, the Shadow King was more closely associated with Xavier and Storm. From Psi-War on, every Shadow King story involved Psylocke beating his ass. Well except for the Storm: Worlds Aprt mini which happened when Betsy was an Exile.
The funny thing is, even before Claremont gave Psylocke telekinesis, she was already being used by other writers. I mean, she played a considerable role in the Twelve arc (which was horrible but important to the X-Men).
Speaking about Psylocke and Shadow King, I was recently re-reading the Muir Island Saga, and... to be honest, I found myself enjoying the uniforms from both X-Men and X-Factor. Not the best ones the characters ever had, sure, but while they gave the characters no personal sense of individuality, they did work to make the two teams look like actual teams, rather than a bunch of individual superheroes banded together (it's a shame Beast didn't wear an uniform like his X-Factor teammates... as for Archangel, he still felt as an outsider due to Apocalypse's tamperings, so it makes sense that he wouldn't try to blend in). And wow, did Psylocke look HOT in blue and gold!
I'm not saying the X-Men should return to a single uniform (most of them are currently with great uniforms), of course, just noticing that it was cool for a change back then.
Psylocke is probably, after Xavier, the most expert in battles at the astral plane. She is been fighting Farouk since became a major telepath. Love it
I loved her "Shadow Queen" persona ;)
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