Psylocke

Psylocke, after and before.

"This is who I was. A last link to my life. Gone. A life that was ripped away from me a long time ago by one man. A man I thought I had made my peace with. I was wrong. Whatever mercy I had left in me burned away with that body. Whaterver vestiges of Elizabeth Braddock that would spare him again are gone. Become now? Matsu'o Tsurayaba is going to die."

—Elizabeth Braddock (Psylocke), Psylocke #1

Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock (aka Psylocke) was created by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe in the late 1980s and appeared in Captain Britain, vol. 1 #8. She is one of the X-Men, twin sister of Captain Britain, and is one of the most famous British superhero in Marvel Comics.

Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock was the daughter of James Braddock Sr. and Lady Elizabeth Braddock, until her parents died in a lab "accident" from the super intelligent AI computer, Mastermind.

Eventually, after some incidents, Elizabeth's psychic powers emerge and grew. This made her be more prominent, even using the "Captain Britain" title temporary. Soon, she joined the X-Men and got her title of ""Psylocke." The biggest change to Psylocke's appearance was when she and a female ninja, Kwannon, switch minds. Currently, this is her most recent form.

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Psylocke provides examples of the following tropes:

• Aborted Arc: In the late 1980s, it appeared that a May-December Romance between Psylocke and Doug "Cypher" Ramsey of the New Mutants was being set up in the wake of her rescue from Mojo, but the plot line was abruptly halted and both went on to other relationships (and in Cypher's case, his death shortly thereafter).
• Action Girl: Eventually develops into one.
• Affirmative Action Legacy: Briefly as a female Captain Britain, replacing her brother, Brian.
• All Amazons Want Hercules: Literally. A team up with Hercules revealed that during an earlier team up, the two flirted with each other and then slept together. Before they departed, Hercules told Psylocke that her beauty was "unforgettable"...And yet, back in the present, he did not seem to remember her at all. This made Betsy punching him in the jaw.
• Animal Motifs: Butterflies, it's a symbol of her telepathy. They also represent her gracefulness and change. Especially when she switched bodies with her brother, thus becoming Captain Britain, gaining new psychic powers, and eventually joining the X-Men.
• Anti-Hero: During her British days, Psylocke is initially a pragmatic Type II. After her body swap, she became a darker Type IV. Over time she reverted to a lighter hue, even after joining the Black Ops squad in Uncanny X-Force. Now it's complicated, since she's somewhere in a "Type IV trying to be Type II" stage.
• The Atoner: In Uncanny X-Force Vol. 2, Psylocke is trying to not kill anymore, since it has become similar to an addiction to her.
• Attempted Rape: Kaptain Briton, her brother's evil counterpart from an alternate reality, attempted to rape her. Fortunately, she discovered her previously minimal psychic powers, which are more formidable than she believed at that point. Unfortunately, Captain Britain, her brother, was trapped in the alternate universe were Kaptain Briton hailed from, he too faced this at the hands of the villainess, Sat-Yr-9, just without any ability to fight them off, this adds to Brian's ever growing list of never-mentioned-after-rape experiences.
• Ascended Extra: In the Captain Britain comics, she was initially a supporting character.
• Back from the Dead: While protecting Rogue and Beast, she was once stabbed fatally by a man known as Vargas. Who the villain beaten Rogue and Beast earlier. One year after her death, Betsy awoke where she had died and unaware of how she had survived. She was soon reunited with the X-Men. It is later revealed that it was her older brother, Jamie, who had saved her with his reality warping powers.
• Badass Princess: In the House of M reality, Betsy became this and heir to the British throne and sister to Captain Britain, the King.
• Beta Couple: Until Thunderbird III came along, she and Archangel were the beta couple to Cyclops and Jean Grey for several years.
• Betty and Veronica: She was the Veronica to Jean's Betty during the early days of the Blue and Gold team split, even tried to start an affair with Cyclops. The story arc was dropped and no real explanation either. Given that many of Jim Lee's personal comics, outside of the X-Men, has cold and remote but hot ninja-babes, who wear ass-floss uniforms. It is possible that he interjected into the story himself after Claremont left.
• Bi the Way: In Uncanny X-Force, Betsy has a brief sexual relationship with Cluster and no one even mentions the fact that they are both women. This is slightly complicated by Cluster who is a male aspect of Fantomex. Although, she does not show any attraction to Weapon XIII, the third is also another male aspect.
• Blind Seer: Kind of. After loosing her eyes, Psylocke can use her psychic powers to see through the eyes of everyone around her. Occasionally seeing the future.
• Blood Knight: In the 2010s' X-Force series, she's in denial about it. Psylocke considers herself as an addict (Much like her alcoholic brother). Her addiction is killing people.
• Blue Blood: The Braddocks are a high-class British family. Both she and her brother have hereditary membership in London's Hellfire Club.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Several times:
  • The first was when Betsy was caputred by the Hand, merged/ body swapped with Kwannon. Eventually programmed to serve as Lady Mandrain. During that time, the brainwashing was broken when she used her psychic knife on Wolverine, who was in a hallucinatory psychotic break. The crazy was enough to override her brainwashing.
  • Crimson Dawn is a more insidious example, which was said to have stained her soul. The full implications were never explained, but it was generally reckoned that Psylocke became more ruthless and violent under its influence.
  • When Archangel took his place as the heir of Apocalypse and transforms her into his Horseman of Death. Jean Grey directly intervene to override this.
• Break the Cutie: In Uncanny X-Force Vol. 1 is a never ending Trauma Conga Line to Psylocke.
• Brother-Sister Team: Sometimes with Captain Britain, like in the Excalibur and Exlies comics. In their civilian life, the twins are also very close.
• Bulletproof Vest: She is one of the few non-invulnerable heroes to have good sense to procure adequate body armor. Up until Psylocke became a stripperifficninja.
• Captain Geographic: Briefly, when she became Captain Britain and Lady Briton.
• Captain Superhero: When she was Captain Britain.
• Character Development: Originally, Betsy was the farthest from an action girl that one could get and still be a superhero. Preferring to avoid outright conflicts, via using Jedi mind tricks and sneaky telepathic tactics. After the Freaky Friday, which gave her martial arts skills, she went from Squishy Wizard to Bare-Fisted Monk, thus putting herself In Harm's Way more often and sometimes (Depending on the Author) suffering humiliating defeats.
• The Chick: She's the Lady of War version of this in the Uncanny X-Force Vol. I.
• Cleavage Window: Psylocke's Captain Britain/Lady Briton costume.
• Clothes Make the Superman: She keeps the costume that used to belong to Kaptain Briton to briefly become Captain Britain. In Uncanny X-Force, she assumed the alias Lady Briton and uses the costume briefly. The costume increases her attributes to superhuman levels, even granting her ability to fly and make a personal force field.
• Curb Stomp Battle: She was on the receiving end of this, when her eyes were injured by Slaymaster and later, when Vargas once killed her.
• Cursed with Awesome: In Uncanny X-Force Vol. I, to save Fantomex, she "sacrificed" her ability to feel sorrow. Even pointing out that she never would've had what it takes to save the multiverse without make the deal.
• Death Is Cheap: Vargas, a swordsman, killed her in a one-sided fight. Her fans were not happy about this. A few years later, Psylocke was resurrected without any explanation, some years after this, any explanation that was offered...Reeks of Hand Wave.
  • However, Chris Claremont - Has noted Action Girl lover and her creator, who's helped many underutilized female character take a level in badass - Was the writer of her death and resurrection. The story just revealed how her resurrection happened. It's possible that all of this was planned and would have gone much smoother, if not for the meddling editors.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In Exiles, she has the tendency to take out foes well above her weight class left and right.
• Dirty Business: Psylocke is one of the X-Men's most prominent anti-heroes, secondly only to Wolverine in terms of being a pragmatic hero.
• Driven to Suicide: In the Uncanny X-Force's time travel arc. The discovery that in the future, she's a totalitarian dictator leads her to attempted seppuku; luckily, Psylocke survives.
• Dye Hard: In-Universe, Psylocke was originally a blonde, just like her twin brother. After the body-swap, it seems to be her natural color.
• Electronic Eyes: After Slaymaster blinded her, Spiral replaced her eyes with electronic ones, these instantly adjusts to light and broadcasts her adventures back to Mojoworld. Later, as Kwannon, in Psylocke's orginal body was dying of the Legacy Virus, she send the electronic eyes to Psylocke.
• The Empath: Psylocke herself.
• Exposed to the Elements: In a 1990s issue, the team goes to Siberia. Since Psylocke's costume exposes most of her arms and legs, she adapts by putting on a short jacket (Which she does not close up).
• Eye Scream: During her brief time as Captain Britain, Slaymaster inflicted this on her.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Mostly common regarding her boots and ribbons (even in the movies). Including her Horseman of Apocalypse and X-Men: The End.
• Flying Brick: Granted by her Captain Britain/Lady Briton costume.
• Freaky Friday Flip: Psylocke and the ninja, Kwannon, is one of the few permanent examples. It was not a clean switch, Psylocke received Kwannon's martial arts training while Kwannon's telepathy got a power upgrade. Both ladies retained their original abilities and Psylocke's face is still recognizable (Later, she was confirmed be in Kwannon's body now). Essentially both of them still have a bit of their old bodies in their new ones and both can use Psylocke's "psychic knife." Eventually, Kwannon joins the X-Men herself as Revanche and remained with them, until her death from the Legacy Virus.
• Giant Poofy Sleeves: Her first and second superhero costumes had these. This motif carried over into her first X-Men costume, before she started using the body armor suit.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Since Betsy is a former supermodel, who has butterfly motifs, she favors a mix of purple and pink. She is even depicted as an elegant Lady of War, who wears purple leotard.
• Half Human Hybrid: Her father is an Otherworlder.
• In Harm's Way: Kwannon's telepathy was much weaker than Betsy's, therefore the psychic knife was her way of focusing her power. Psylocke never had needed such a thing before her body switch, since she was perfectly capable of frying people's brains at a large distance.
• Katanas Are Just Better: She can make a telekinetic katana blade out of raw psi-energy at will, with its lowest intensity, this serves to disrupt neural pathways at its highest. Psylocke's katanas can slice an armored opponent and can cut through them, but leaves the attacker unharmed physically.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Killing her brother's evil twin from an alternate earth does not count. - By the time she finished Kaptain Briton off, she knew it wasn't Brian. Though killing Jamie (In order to stop his future self from becoming a demon, who conquers the multi-verse.), counts. Also, completing a mindwipe on Archangel (Which is an effective execution). She also kills Matsu'o Tsurayaba, while she does not love him, but her body's previous owner probably does.
• Lady of War: She is stoic and ruthless, her mastery in martial arts gives Psylocke movements that are smooth and graceful lethality. When her Psychic Powers materializes, they have butterfly motifs and allows her to form an elegant telekinetic katana weapon.
• Laser Blade Below the Shoulder: Her psychic form knife appears like this.
• Leotard of Power: Her ninja outfit.
• The Lost Lenore: Psylocke was traumatized by the death of her boyfriend, Tom Lennox. But this was almost completely forgotten since she moved to the X-Men.
• McNinja: She is this of the British variety.
• Male Gaze: Obviously, she gets this a LOT. It's a rare issue which does not show her butt to the readers.
• Mercy Killing: At his request, she did this to Matsu'o Tsurayaba, the person who switched her body with Kwannon.
  • For context: He made the mistake of poisoning Wolverine's love interest. So at the anniversary of her death, Wolverine returns and cuts a piece of his body. During the end, he appeared like this.
• Mind Rape: This is how Psylocke killed Kaptain Briton. Later, in Uncanny X-Force, she does this to her twin brother, Brian, in order to kill their older brother, James. Because Brian hesitated to do it. During this time, the older Braddock sibling was manipulated by Horoam'ce, the devil goat, who wants to seize the Multiverse and wanted to get into the Starlight Citadel to do so.
• Most Common Superpower: Subverted. Psylocke is not the best endowed of the X-girls. Though probably the most revealing, due to her "ninja" outfit.
• Ms. Exposition: She's infamous for over describing her powers, usually a variant of "The focused totality of my telepathic powers."
• Ms. Fanservice: Not as much with the Most Common Superpower, but for twenty years she was stuck with a costume that was pretty stripperiffic. Also, do not forget that she is the poster trope for the Over-the-Shoulder Pose.
• Multicolored Hair: Her time as Captain Britain Seen here. Averted with Lady Briton, she she keeps her purple hair.
• Never Be Hurt Again: In Uncanny X-Force Vol. 1, In order to save Fantomex, she sacrificed her ability to feel sorrow.
• Over-the-Shoulder Pose: During the '90s and early 2000s, this is so common. Many artists and fans actually call this the "Psylocke Pose."
• Parental Abandonment: Since both of her parents are dead.
• Powers as Programs: As the X-Men's most egregious example. From Psylocke's inception, no one can decide what powers she should have. First, she started off as a telepath/precog, later they dropped the precognition in favor of stronger telepathy, after her Race Lift, she obtains a "psychic knife." She gain the ability to teleport through shadows, after a near-death experience. But during a fight with the Shadow King, she lost all her powers, only to return with telekinesis and a shiny new sword. That was all before she died and somehow came back... Since then, Psylocke grows a bit in power, that the writers describes her coming into the Omega Class mutant bracket, as in the most powerful type of mutant, those whose powers have nigh-infinite potential. Her powers - Now are both telepathic and telekinetic. - Are described to be in the a similar league as Phoenix or Cable. Currently, Betsy has manifested her powers as summoning melee weapons made out of psychokinetic energy. Each one with tremendous destructive power.
• Psychic Powers: Through out the years, the types and levels varies. As mentioned above, sometimes telepathic, telekinetic, rarely but sometimes both at once. Though sometimes enough just to give a bit of an edge to a mostly Badass Normal ninja, and sometimes Phoenix-grade.
• Purple Is Powerful: Most of her costumes are purple, she even dyed her hair purple.
• Race Lift: Justified. Mainly, due to her Freaky Friday Flip with Kwannon, the ninja. She turns from a British Caucasian girl to Japanese.
• Retcon: Betsy's transformations was originally used to explained away as Spiral and Mojo's altering her with plastic surgeries and magic, hence why Wolverine can still recognize her face. It's implied that her camera eyes are still intact. However, Fabian Nicieza did not know of the explanation and introduced Kwannon, stating that Brian's twin sister's body had been swapped with hers. Later, he retcon that explanation, stating that both bodies were swapped, results are that they were incomplete and both ended up with a bit of each others' powers and features. In addition, Kwannon ended up with the camera eyes, until she was stricken with the Legacy Virus, she blinded herself to remove them before she dies.
• Retired Badass: She used to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s British counterpart, S.T.R.I.K.E.
• She's Got Legs: Many art of hers likes to focus on her legs and butt.
• Show Some Leg: In Uncanny X-Men 466, in order to help Rachel sneak out of the mansion, Psylocke does her daily exercise routine in plain sight to distract the Sentinels from their human pilot.
• Smug Super: Has the tendency to be extremely condescending.
• Spy Catsuit: This outfit
• Stiff Upper Lip: Just like her brother, Brian, and fellow British superheroine, Spitfire.
• Stripperiffic: The ninja bathing suit.
• Stuffed in A Fridge: Initially averted. - When Kaptain Briton tried to rape her, she reacted by messily killing him. Some issues later, her eyes were poked out by Slaymaster, much later, Vargas killed her once. She got better though.
• Thong of Shielding: Her costume sometimes covers her behind completely, just showing off her thighs. Other times, it can be generously called a g-string. It does not help that in almost every panel that she's in has her striking a pose that's like something out of a Hip-Hop video.
• Took a Level in Badass: A possibly inadvertent subversion. - On paper, going from a supporting psychic to badass ninja sounds like an upgrade, though she proved as far less effective in ninja mode, like losing most of her super powers, mostly filling up as the Worf of the team, and getting eviscerated brutally by Sabretooth, a foe she had previously been able to defeat by psychic powers alone.
  • Somewhat justifiable circumstances. Wolverine had "popped a claw" into 'tooth's head previously, and told her after she smacked him with a psychic knife:

"Since the runt popped his claw on me - the glow don't work no more."

• • Depending on the Author...It counts as played straight (Ninjas do a lot of evading attacks, unlike her previous, armor-clad self...In addition, it has shown that her psychic blade plus her superior telepathy proves mostly to be a Game Breaker) or subverted (The Worf Effect mentioned above).
  • Of course, shortly before her death many years after her resurrection, Psychole is the Action Girl-loving-to-Author Appeal levels to Chris Claremont for a while. After she was resurrected, she's been kicking ass, taking names, and having a lot of bad guys feel her psychic blade's wrath, which apparently appears like a katana, since Katanas Are Just Better. Against foes, who should be aware of her Super Weight class, she will "find a way to win." Which Claremont's favorite author catchphrases currently. Today She is definitely more badass than where she started, even if it wasn't a steady, yet consistent climb.
• Twin Telepathy: The Twins share a special bond through her telepathy.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: As Captain Britain/Lady Briton.
• The Worf Effect: As mentioned earlier, after her Race Lift, Psylocke spend some time as the punching bag for every villain on the block (Which culminated in being killed off of showing how dangerous Vargas was). Fortunately, in the 2010s spotlight, she returned in full badass mode.
• Zettai Ryouiki: Wearing her ninja costume.