Should Psylocke Have Been Brought Back in her Original Body?

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Chris Claremont is the only writer--besides Alan Davis (Alan Davis mentioned how much Psylocke has changed, yet remains the same fundamental person in Excalibur #55-56)--to touch upon Betsy's previous life as a successful fashion model (Uncanny X-Men #456 Betsy is looking at a fashion magazine) & her time with the UK military (X-Treme X-Men #4 flashback with her mission to infiltrate the Hellfire Club). I am a little disturbed how they have completely ignored Betsy's true core character, yet they continually emphasize her Asian background when she has none to speak of.

Too true DDM. It's just plain wrong. There's so much more to the character from her pre-X-Men days to play with than the lazy writers in the late 90s in particular ever bothered with.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

I say yes to British Betsy. But not just for the obvious reasons of being a) British m'self, and b) a huge Captain Britain fan, but more specifically because by the time of her death Marvel had just about run out of anything left to do with Asian Betsy. She, very much like Colossus as well, had become stale as a character - hanging around in the background more often than not, and not really doing an awful lot. But as with Poitr, rather than find a new direction the found her a new state of breathing i.e. NOT, anymore.

The bottom line was that Betsy was a mess. She's Captain Britain's twin, a telepath with some pre-cog abilities too, who was moulded into an assassin after being transferred into an Asian body. Then there was the Crimson Dawn, which at least didn't do her quite so badly as her brother came off. And finally the Shadow King effectively takes away her powers forcing her to imprison him within her.

The TK was a shoddy way of developing a new power for her to stay in active duty. She was never very good with it and it simply didn't match her character - Asian or British.

When she came back she should have been British and telepathic again. God knows the X-Men could have done with another psi, and Betsy could have been something much more interesting - actually stretching readers to remember the 80s.

But I think a compromise to the editors could have been made that would have benefited both parties. Betsy could have easily come back in her British body, but still dress largely Asian for the first couple of years, have retained her fighting skills (Although be most notably not anywhere near at her peak in her old body), ans still wield her psychic knives or katanas, but also using the butterfly effect she used to. It not like that effect couldn't seem linked to Japanese/Chinese culture, and it's not like she would look radically physically different. We all saw how Kwannon looked in Betsy's original body, right? I don;t see that that would have been a problem at all.

[The Fury]

I with some pre-cog abilities too

You know, just bring that back for now would be cool. Fair enough she;s lost her main TP, but she could still have kept the part of her that sees the future...maybe.


Maybe to satisfy a lot of people's needs they could have bought a Betsy in her original body into Exiles. I knwo we will be getting the real one from 616 but it's an idea...I guess.

[Darkwave]

It's the same mistake as giving Archangel his feathered wings back and restoring his skin tone, or putting Xavier back in a wheel chair, or putting Havok back in his brother's shadow, or making Magneto a hypocratic villain again.

I agree with this comment completely. I strongly dislike it when characters are reverted, and robbed of their evolution.

Changes should be rare, well-thought out, and permanent. Character development should not be unwound (as they have with Alex, and with Bobby).

Giving Archangel his caucasian skin back was one of the worst decisions they've made. I could stand behind it if it somehow furthered the plot or character development -- but I honestly can't decypher any reason that they did it, other than the fact that X3 was coming out, Angel was caucasian in X3, and so he needed to be caucasian in the books.

Xavier's paralysis/non-paralysis is on the same level as Jean Grey being dead or not.

[Frank]

Frankly, ninja Psylocke is as much played out as Rogue and Gambit. Three characters that needs to sit in limbo for a while who represent too much the messy 90s(I would put Cable and Bishop in there too).

So yes, brit Betsy would have been a welcome change. In fact, while I was a big fan when ninja Psylocke showed up, I think it was like killing a character and having another one appear with the same name. They were two different characters, not only in looks but in personality. Claremont has sometime a tendency to do that, as he did when he brought Rogue to the X-Men(a far cry from the middle-age Ms. Marvel villainess). It would be refreshing to see the other brought back to life again since to me she was as interesting as the asian one.

[Tilt]

I HATE POLLS THAT DON'T LET ME SEE WHO VOTED WHAT.

MEGAPHOENIX OF DEATH, that ho Rachel Summers, and many others bore me to tears. I also loved the simply telekinetic Marvel Girl of X-Factor. I like my characters with limitations and limited uses.

-B

O no Baby, I love you but you so need to chill on the Rachel hate. :( You're calling Ray a ho and your fav is Dazz. Ali's a much bigger ho than Ray ever could ever have been on her worst slutty outfit day. How many guys was she with in her comic pre-Longshot? Didn't she date the lawyer and Angel at the same time, but didn't tell the lawyer that Warren was taking her for late night flights? ;) Just saying...


I prefer British Betsy just because that's how I got introduced to the character, but I don't mind the new body all that much. It does seem to me she had more depth before she became a pin-up girl and the writers took her more seriously.

[Golon9977]

No the currnt Psylocke is much better than the original one. The X-Men have too many white people as it is and the asian Psylocke has more sex appeal than the brit one.

And neither Matsuo or Psylocke/Kwanon are Chinese; they are Japanese (and have been Japanese since the Acts of Vengeance storyline) as it has been posted previously here.

[DDM]

No the currnt Psylocke is much better than the original one. The X-Men have too many white people as it is and the asian Psylocke has more sex appeal than the brit one.

And neither Matsuo or Psylocke/Kwanon are Chinese; they are Japanese (and have been Japanese since the Acts of Vengeance storyline) as it has been posted previously here.

Simply saying the X-Men have "too many white people" sounds more racist to me than anything else. The X-Men have a large minority cast as it is. What is wrong with white people? Psylocke is--at her core--still an Anglo-Saxon British woman; this is something too fundamental to ignore. Trying to play the race card sounds too much like race hustlers, Cynthia McKinney, Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson.

[MakeMineMarvel]

Giving Archangel his caucasian skin back was one of the worst decisions they've made. I could stand behind it if it somehow furthered the plot or character development -- but I honestly can't decypher any reason that they did it, other than the fact that X3 was coming out, Angel was caucasian in X3, and so he needed to be caucasian in the books.

Angel lost his blue skin in Uncanny X-Men #410, which I believe came out in 2001 which is 5 years before X3 came out and possibly even before X2 came out so I don't think that was the reason at all.

[Golon9977]

Simply saying the X-Men have "too many white people" sounds more racist to me than anything else. The X-Men have a large minority cast as it is. What is wrong with white people?

Aside from Bishop, name one current X-Man that is a minority.

[Beast]

Aside from Bishop, name one current X-Man that is a minority.

They all are, they're mutants.

[DDM]

Aside from Bishop, name one current X-Man that is a minority.

Storm (black/pagan, worships Nature gods)
Bishop (black)
Sage (Greek)
Wolfsbane (Scottish/Catholic)
M (Indian)
Siryn (Irish)
Strong Guy (Italian)
Rictor (Hispanic)
Sunspot (Portuguese)
Shadowcat (Jewish)
Warpath (Native American)
Mystique (her skin is blue)
Nightcrawler (blue skin)
Gambit (Southern French from Louisiana)
Magma (pagan/worships Roman gods)
Captain Britain (English)
Nocturne (blue skin)
Karima (Indian)

I'll add more when I think of them.

[Golon9977]

Storm (black/pagan, worships Nature gods)
Bishop (black)
Sage (Greek)
Wolfsbane (Scottish/Catholic)
M (Indian)
Siryn (Irish)
Strong Guy (Italian)
Rictor (Hispanic)
Sunspot (Portuguese)
Shadowcat (Jewish)
Warpath (Native American)
Mystique (her skin is blue)
Nightcrawler (blue skin)
Gambit (Southern French from Louisiana)
Magma (pagan/worships Roman gods)
Captain Britain (English)
Nocturne (blue skin)
Karima (Indian)

I'll add more when I think of them.

You're kidding right? Storm is off in Black Panthers book. M is not Indian. Portuguese is a language, not a race. Wolfsbane, Siryn, Guido, Shadowcat, Gambit, Magma, and Capt Britain are all white. A blue pigmentation of your skin does not make you non-white or give you your own race. All the other actual non-whiote characters are not current X-Men.

Aside from Sage, I'll give you that one. So no, the X-Men do not have a large minority cast.

[Beast]

You're kidding right? Storm is off in Black Panthers book. M is not Indian. Portuguese is a language, not a race. Wolfsbane, Siryn, Guido, Shadowcat, Gambit, Magma, and Capt Britain are all white. A blue pigmentation of your skin does not make you non-white or give you your own race. All the other actual non-whiote characters are not current X-Men.

Aside from Sage, I'll give you that one. So no, the X-Men do not have a large minority cast.

As usual the problem is the focus on skin color. Just because there's numerous so-called 'White' people in comics, doesn't mean they're all the same. To lump Wolfsbane, Siryn, Strong Guy, Shadowcat, Gambit, Magma, and Captain Britian into one group due to the color of their skin does a disservice to them as characters. Different cultures are just as viable a difference as different skin tones are. And yes, being blue does make you non-white to people viewing you. In fact it's a much more shocking difference if you consider real world terms as they're presented in the MU. Black skinned people are common, Blue skinned would be rare and 'weird'.

[Darkwave]

Angel lost his blue skin in Uncanny X-Men #410, which I believe came out in 2001 which is 5 years before X3 came out and possibly even before X2 came out so I don't think that was the reason at all.

OK, so I was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong :)


For some reason, I thought the change happened much more recently.


So then, I can't think of any reason why they changed his skin back.