Real Name: Elisabeth Braddock, Kwannon
Former Aliases: Captain Britain, Lady Mandarin, Kwannon
Group Affiliation: former member of S.T.I.R.K.E., Hellfire Club member, Hand, X-Men (Blue Strike Force)
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 155 lbs.
Hair: Formerly blonde, now Purple.
Eyes: Blue (Caucasian form); Brown (Asian form).
Place of Birth: Braddock manor, Malden, England.
Relatives: Brian Braddock (Twin Brother), Jamie Braddock (Brother).
Abilities: She is well trained in the martial art form of Ninjitsu, and can also speak fluent Japanese.
Occupations: Fashion Model, Assassin.
Legal Status: Citizen of the U.S.A. with no criminal record.
Marital Status: Single
First Appearance: Captain Britain #8 (1st Series); (US) New Mutants Annual #2
Powers: Telekinesis and Flight. She can also manifest the totality of her psychic abilities into a 'Psychic katana blade' which temporarily immobilizes her opponent when struck.
She's a Mutant, one of a team of outlaw adventurers known to the world as the X-Men. She's a Telekinetic with the ability to manipulate solid matter and objects with the power of her thoughts. Her name is Elisabeth Braddock. She is also known as PSYLOCKE!
Telekinesis
Only recently has Psylockes' mutant powers changed form into something potentially more dangerous than her old psychic knife. enter Telekinesis, the ability to move and manipulate objects with the effort of mere thought. Still a rookie in expertise, Psylocke has been spending her time developing these skills in the danger room. It will only be a matter of time when she will be able to unleash the full capacity of this unfamiliar power!
Telekinetic Blade
One skill Psylocke has learnt to master with her new powers is that she can conjure a Telekinetic Blade. This blade is three and a half times the length of her previous Psychic Knife and can slice her enemies in half as if it were her Katana blade. This is Psylocke's preferred means of self-defense, as she is already skilled with the Katana Blade.
Telekinetic Flight
No more holding hands with archangel. No more high-flying rescue attempts from Storm or Rogue. Psylocke has earned her frequent flyer points! That's right, psylocke can now fly! Thanks to her new Telekinetic flying ability, Psylocke is a one way flight of independence! Instead of moving other objects with her Telekinetic powers, Psylocke can address herself with it. She cloaks herself with an Invisible (or pink) Aura of Psychic mobility, and uses her mind to control where she moves.
The Art of Ninjitsu
Of all the changes Psylocke has been through, this technique remains. Psylocke has spent a large portion of her life studying the Ancient Japanese art of Ninjitsu. Now she is one of the deadliest Ninja combatants alive. She is skilled with the use of the Katana, a long sword-like blade that was favored by the Samurai in 19th Century Japan. Put Psylocke and a Katana together and get ready to see some amazing moves
Elisabeth (sometimes misspelled as Elizabeth) "Betsy" Braddock was born in and raised in England. Born in the small town of Maldon, Essex, Betsy and her brothers had a very privileged life. She is the twin sister of Brian Braddock, better known as the superhero Captain Britain and first appeared in his eponymous series. After working as a commercial pilot for some time, she dyed her hair purple ( it has been suggested in previous story lines that her hair turned purple at the emergence of her powers during puberty, while her brother's hair remained blonde), joined the psi-division of STRIKE (the British branch of the US-based espionage outfit S.H.I.E.L.D.), and went undercover as a fashion model. One of her assignments was to infiltrate the Hellfire Club, but Tessa forced her to abandon the mission. A British crime lord, Vixen, hired Slaymaster to destroy the psi-division and he managed to kill all but Betsy, her lover Tom Lennox and their friend Alison Double before Captain Britain defeated him.
When reality warped due to James Jaspers's powers, Tom sacrificed himself to delay a group of superhuman-hunters to let the Braddocks escape. Following the repair of the reality warp, an evil version of Captain Britain from another universe named Kaptain Briton switched places with Brian, handed him over to the Technet (who were after the Kaptain) and tried to rape Betsy. In self-defense, she attacked him telepathically, killing him.
Betsy assumed his uniform and received training from Captain UK, another alternate Captain Britain, to become the new Captain while Brian was away working for the covert British agency RCX, which had replaced the defunct STRIKE. Vixen lured Betsy into a trap, where Slaymaster beat her almost to death, gouging out her eyes. Summoned by his sister's telepathic distress call, Captain Britain crushed Slaymaster's head under a rock.
She was later kidnapped by the other-dimensional television producer Mojo and his henchwoman, the six-armed, android sorceress Spiral and implanted with bionic eyes. Giving her the name "Psylocke", Mojo made her the star of the Wildways TV program. The New Mutants, the teenage sister team of the X-Men, got involved rescuing Psylocke from Mojo and took her back with them to Westchester County, New York. She decided to stay with the X-Men and learn how to better control her powers.
Her role in the Mutant Massacre, including pulling information about Mister Sinister from Sabretooth's mind, led to her induction into the X-Men. She was among the X-Men as they fought the Adversary in Dallas in the event known as The Fall of the Mutants, and subsequently transported to the Australian Outback by Roma. After a fight with the Reavers, Psylocke donned body armour to protect herself in physical confrontations. When Storm was thought killed in a fight with the entity called Nanny, Psylocke briefly took over as the leader of the X-Men.
Transformed
Psylocke is transformed into Lady Mandarin. Cover to Uncanny X-Men #256. Art by Jim Lee.After going through the dimensional gateway known as the Siege Perilous, Psylocke was found by the Hand, a clan of ninja. Their leader, Matsu'o Tsurayaba, contacted Spiral to swap the mind of his brain-damaged lover, Kwannon, into Psylocke's body. Spiral not only swapped their minds but mingled various memories and skills, as well as certain physical traits. With some physical and mental conditioning, Psylocke (whose persona inhabited Kwannon's body) became the Hand's prime assassin and took the name Lady Mandarin. As Lady Mandarin, she alternated between a new armored costume and a more revealing one, gained highly remarkable ninja fighting skills, and learned to focus her telepathic power into a "psychic knife" which appeared as a dagger of energy projecting outward from her fist.
Lady Mandarin's first mission pitted her against Wolverine. Her psychic knife attack showed her his memories of who she used to be and broke the Hand's conditioning. Psylocke rejected her role as Lady Mandarin and escaped with Wolverine and Jubilee, eventually going with them to the island nation of Genosha (which built its wealth on the basis of mutant slaves).
In Genosha, Psylocke, Wolverine, and Jubilee discovered that the New Mutants had been kidnapped along with the X-Men's leader, Storm, by Cameron Hodge (a former advisor to the team of the X-Men's founding students calling themselves X-Factor). Psylocke, Wolverine, and Jubilee also encountered Havok, whom Psylocke had psychically nudged through the Siege Perilous, acting as a Magistrate (one of Genosha's gestapo-like military police officers). Following the defeat of Cameron Hodge, the X-Men reunited and returned to New York.
After the X-Men split into two teams in 1991, Psylocke joined Cyclops's Blue Team and eventually started flirting with him. When Phoenix found out, the two women started fighting, but were interrupted by the arrival of Kwannon -- now calling herself Revanche, in Betsy's former body. Revanche claimed to be the real Betsy, and not even Wolverine's enhanced senses could tell them apart. Further, attempts to gain an explanation from the Hand were unsuccessful. Eventually, Revanche revealed that she had contracted the Legacy Virus and explained to Psylocke what Spiral had done at Tsurayaba's request; dying, Revanche merged her mind with Psylocke's and the merger restored the full memories of both. Through as yet unexplained means, Psylocke was able to retain Revanche's martial arts skills upon Revanche's death. Afterwards, Phoenix trained Betsy in her telepathic powers and Betsy started a relationship with Warren Worthington III, the Archangel.
Crimson Dawn
In an attempt to save Boomer (now known as Meltdown) from Sabretooth, Psylocke was critically wounded. In a bid to save her life, Archangel and Wolverine went with Doctor Strange into the Crimson Dawn to retrieve a magical liquid that could heal her. The mission was successful, although the healing liquid produced side effects: A red dagger-shaped tattoo appeared over Psylocke's left eye, she gained the ability to hide in and teleport through shadows, and her personality took on a cold edge. Warren gave up a portion of his essence to free Psylocke from what turned out to be the evil influence of the Crimson Dawn, although she still retained the abilities associated with it. The couple retired from active duty with the X-Men.
Psi-War
Psylocke later battled the powerful telepath known as the Shadow King in a fight that disabled telepaths across the globe and destroyed her astral form. She reappeared in a shadow form (another side-effect of the Crimson Dawn) and tricked the Shadow King into over-extending himself so she could contain him within her own mind. To keep the Shadow King imprisoned, Psylocke had to keep her telepathic powers focused on containing him and thus effectively lost the use of her telepathy.
Power Switch
Psylocke dons a new costume after gaining her telekinesisDuring the six-month story gap before Chris Claremont's second stint as X-Men scribe, Phoenix attempted to help Psylocke deal with the Shadow King, and ended up with the two switching powers, so Psylocke's telepathic powers were added to Phoenix's telepathy, and Psylocke gained Phoenix's telekinesis. Psylocke returned to active duty. She started flirting with Neal Shaara, Thunderbird III and Warren broke up with her.
Psylocke then joined Storm's team, the X-Treme X-Men, to search for Destiny's diaries. On one of the team's first missions, she died fighting the man known as Vargas while protecting Rogue and Beast, who were badly beaten by the villain.
Her body was returned to her family's estate, but later stolen by Vargas, who had it stuffed and mounted. Her spirit appeared to Bishop in a vision, but she was attacked by a skull-faced apparition and pulled through a glowing gate.
Back From the Dead
In Uncanny X-Men #455 Psylocke made a miraculous return from the dead. Shortly after her return, she and the rest of the X-Men found themselves in an adventure in the Savage Land. During this mission Psylocke displayed more creative uses for her powers, most notably the augmentation of her physical strength by using her telekinesis to back up her attacks.
Upon returning from the Savage Land, medical tests by the Beast conducted at the X-Mansion proved that she was indeed Betsy Braddock. She officially rejoined the team and was reunited with her other teammates. When the Scarlet Witch's reality warp altered the entire 616 universe in the House of M, Betsy Braddock temporarily became princess Elisabeth Glorianna Braddock, an adventurer and member of England's royalty. After the House of M ended, it was revealed that Betsy was one of the 198, the group of mutants who had retained their powers after M-Day.
In the first part of The First Foursaken story arc, it was revealed that one year after her murder by Vargas, Psylocke was brought back to life by her eldest brother, Jamie Braddock. Jamie, a mutant who manipulates the quantum strings that comprise reality, claimed that when he resurrected his sister he also made her immune to the reality-warping abilities of other beings and impervious to mind control and psychic possession. Jamie claimed these steps were necessary in order to make Psylocke a weapon against the "Foursaken," who threaten all of creation, just before a mysterious portal opened and a horrified Jamie was spirited-away by strange, monstrous hands. Nightcrawler took Marvel Girl, Psylocke, Bishop, and Cannonball to Central Park. All but Psylocke were kidnapped by the Foursaken, the supposed end of the universe and Jamie Braddock's best friends. As Psylocke was the wild card (she could not be detected), it was up to her to stop this. She disrupted the Foursaken's magic with iron, and she, the X-Men, and the Foursaken were sucked elsewhere.
Powers and abilities
Psylocke was initially a telepath, and the use of her abilities often triggered the appearance of a butterfly-like mask of psionic energy on her face. With her telepathy she was capable of mentally communicating with and facilitating communication with others, altering a person's sensory perceptions (i.e. cast visual and auditory illusions), seeing and hearing through the minds of others, and projected devastating blasts (psychoblasts) of telepathic energy that could stun, cause a person to lose consciousness, and even die. Psylocke also had limited precognitive abilities. In her early days when she still had her original Caucasian body, she deployed traditional telepathic attacks in battles. She was not a skilled hand-to-hand combatant during this stage, so she relied on fighting from a distance using psi-blasts and similar tactics. Because of her physical vulnerability she was given body armour for a short while to off-set any physical attacks received.
During the brief period when she served as Captain Britain, her costume gave her abilities similar to her brother Brian's.
It is notable that in her early appearances Psylocke was written as not being a mutant, her powers instead stemming from her nonhuman heritage. This was retconned shortly after she joined the X-Men, quite possibly by writer error.
After her physical transformation into an Asian ninja assassin, she gained highly remarkable fighting skills in addition to her telepathy, which at this stage were not as strong as they had originally been before her transformation. Before Kwannon was slain by Matsuo Tsurayaba, she merged her mind with Psylocke's and returned the other half of the psionic power she retained, thus restoring her full telepathic might. The most common usage of her powers was the manifestation of a "psychic knife," described as "the focused totality of her psychic powers," which she often used to disrupt the neurons of her foes by driving the glowing "blade" of mental energy into their heads. It is noted that during this stage she chose to fight up-close most of the time, although she could still utilize distanced telepathic assaults.
After her exposure to the Crimson Dawn, she also gained the ability to teleport herself or others via shadows. Although this form of teleportation was not as controlled or precise as variations of teleportation used by others, it could cover huge distances; on one occasion she transported the X-Men from America to Africa in a few seconds.
To keep the Shadow King imprisoned in the Astral Plane, Psylocke sacrificed the use of her telepathy and power to teleport through shadows, but gained telekinesis thanks to Phoenix. At first, due to the relative newness of her telekinesis, she couldn't exercise fine control over her powers (she could blast an enemy through a brick wall, but couldn't levitate a small dime). As time progressed, Psylocke grew more proficient at using her powers. Instead of her psychic knife, Psylocke can now manifest a telekinetic katana blade composed of raw psi-energy, which at its lowest intensity, functions much like her psychic knife, short-circuiting the victim's nervous system, and at its highest level, her katanas can slice through almost any material. Her control over her sword is so great that she can slice an armored opponent and cut through the armor, but leave the attacker physically unharmed (but with a nasty headache). She can also, as seen in Uncanny X-Men #458, use her swords to shatter telepathic power-inhibitors imposed on other, despite her own lack of telepathy. With no telepathy to guide her when performing this task, she must rely on her instincts to give the blades the sufficient strength nessesary to break the inhibitors, without doing permanent damage to the subject in question.
Aside from the blades, she uses her telekinesis to enhance her speed, strength and fighting skills into super-human levels. She can also move and levitate other people. While she can move objects from a distance and fly as other telekinetics do, she has shown little inclination to do either in combat situations. She can also create telekinetic shields of various sizes and strength and she can fire mental force blasts that can "shatter mountains". Her telekinesis is also much stronger now than it was before her death. After her resurrection, writer Chris Claremont noted that, in addition to no longer having the use of her own telepathy, she is immune to any form of others' telepathy– including telepathic attacks, probes or even attempts at communication (a result of her brother Jamie's manipulation of the quantum strings that comprise her body). Due to Jamie's alterations, Psylocke is also immune or at least highly-resistant to physical and mental alteration by beings who can radically restructure reality (although she can still be killed in more traditional manners, such as being stabbed or shot). Her current psi-shields are also of enormous strength.
Alternate Versions
Age of Apocalypse
Codename: Psylocke
Originally, Psylocke was the only X-Man not depicted in some form or another in the X-Men crossover "Age of Apocalypse", and it was believed Betsy Braddock had been one of the unfortunate telepaths to have been remade into Apocalypse's brain trust, a telepathic defense system for his citadel. However, for "AoA"'s 10th anniversary, a new miniseries was created and Psylocke made an appearance, hot on the heels of her canon resurrection.
Psylocke in the "Age of Apocalypse" appears as a ninja, with black hair and blue eyes. She is a telepath, and an old acquaintance of Wolverine. It also appears that Psylocke has an affinity for the shadows, but bears no Crimson Dawn mark, and it is unclear whether Elisabeth is Asian. However, hair dye would be difficult and frivolous to procure in this war-torn world, and her black hair is likely natural.
Psylocke's Asian appearance in "AoA" isn't explained, though the most simple of explanations is that she submitted herself to plastic surgery to escape both Apocalypse and her own brother Brian Braddock, a bonafide mutant hater.
Ultimate Psylocke
In the World Tour story arc of Ultimate X-Men, Agent Betsy Braddock, along with her partner Agent Dai Thomas, were introduced as a Colonel for the British Secret Service. She is a psychic and, judging by Braddock's assertion, the best psychic in all of England.
Her body is possessed by the Ultimate version of Proteus, but Betsy resists just long enough to allow Ultimate Colossus to drop a car on her, killing them both.
However, her consciousness survived, floating into the comatose body of an Asian girl called Kwannon. This body switch was actually a blessing in disguise, since Betsy had breast cancer, which would have killed her anyway, and she regards her near-death experience as deeply fascinating, but it has also led her to bear a less formal look, as she now wears a number of piercings. Currently she is building up S.T.R.I.K.E., the British division of S.H.I.E.L.D. Betsy has yet to be seen again in Ultimate X-Men or any other Ultimate title.
As in the mainstream Marvel Universe, Betsy is the sister of Brian Braddock, who is now a member of the European Defense Initiative (the European Union equivalent of the Ultimates), code named Captain Britain. Her father, Professor Sir James Braddock oversees the EDI super soldier program.
Days of Future Past
In the Days of Future Past timeline, Psylocke has forsaken Xavier's dream and is the Red Queen, one of the Lords Cardinal of the Hellfire Club, alongside Shinobi Shaw, the Black King.
Appearances in other media
Psylocke as she appears in Capcom's fighting games.
Meiling Melançon as PsylockePsylocke has appeared in a few X-Men-based video games, beginning with the Capcom fighting game X-Men: Children of the Atom and a notable appearance in Marvel Super Heroes in that she was the only female character, ignoring the Japanese version, in which Anita from Darkstalkers appeared as a secret character.
She also has a cameo appearance in the Cammy ending in X-Men vs. Street Fighter and resurfaced as a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 2. She was also the sole female playable character in X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse for the Super NES, as well as X-Men 2: Clone Wars for the Sega Genesis. She was in Activision's X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 and recently, she has appeared in X-Men Legends. She also made a less notable appearance as a playable character in X-Men: Next Dimension, as both Betsy and Psylocke.
She appears in the game X-Men Legends as a playable character, but is not featured in the sequel.
Psylocke appears during the fourth season: in Episode #51 entitled "The Promise of Apocalypse" (Beyond Good and Evil, Part 2), and in Episode 53, entitled "End and Beginning" (Beyond Good and Evil, Part 4). Psylocke makes two quick cameos: during Season 2 in Episode 18, "Repo Man", and Episode 24, "Mojovision".
Psylocke appears in the feature film X-Men: The Last Stand. She is played by actress Meiling Melançon. Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. In the film, she fights against the X-Men as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants. During an interview with Wizard magazine, Melancon said that in X3, Psylocke has the power to turn into a shadow and create psi-blades (which suggests that the Psylocke in the film is the "Crimson Dawn" version of Psylocke). However, in the film, she doesn't appear to create psi-blades (though rumor has it that the X3:The Last Stand DVD there will be a deleted scene which will include Psylocke using her psi-blades against an X-man), but she appears out of nowhere, indicating a blend into the shadows, although there were no shadows present when she appeared.She escaped Phoenix's disintegration wave that killed her allies Arclight and Kid Omega because she ran off camera when they were zapped. In the novelization of the film, Psylocke does indeed escape by teleporting away.
According to scriptwriter Zak Penn, the character played by Meiling Melançon was not named as Psylocke in the original script. In a Q&A on fansite thexverse.com, he claimed that: "There was some switching of character names later in production, and I'm not exactly sure how Psylocke got thrown into the mix."
"I own all of the games that she been in"
