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Elizabeth Braddock (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

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Real Name
Elizabeth Glorianna Braddock
Current Alias

Aliases
Betsy, Betts, Elisabeth Braddock, Captain Britain, Lady Mandarin

Identity

Alignment


Relatives
Sir James Braddock, Sr. (father, deceased), Lady Elizabeth Braddock (mother, deceased), Brian Braddock (aka Captain Britain, twin brother), James "Jamie" Braddock, Jr. (brother, deceased), Meggan (sister-in-law)

Universe

Base Of Operations

Characteristics
Gender

Height


Eyes
Violet, (current body), Blue (original body)

Hair
Black, (dyed purple) (current body), Blond (original body)

Unusual Features
Formerly had a red tattoo over her left eye after gaining Crimson Dawn powers. Originally she had the body of an English woman, but after Revanches' body switch she now has the body of an Asian woman.

Status
Citizenship

Marital Status

Occupation
Adventurer, Ninja, Heiress, Multi-Millionaire, formerly a S.T.R.I.K.E operative, Assassin, fashion model

Education
College Graduate

Origin
Origin
Mutant

Place of Birth

First appearance

Contents

History

Image:Quote1.png Looking for your teleporter? This challenge is to the death, remember? So how 'about we see just how good you really are? Image:Quote2.png
-- Psylocke

James Braddock Sr. was a denizen of Otherworld, an other-dimensional realm. Merlyn sent James to Earth to father the champion who would be known as Captain Britain. Arriving in England, Dr. Braddock became one of the United Kingdom's leading research scientists. James soon married and set up home in Braddock Manor. There he created a highly advanced supercomputer he named Mastermind.

Betsy as a young model

Dr. and Mrs. Braddock had three children, Jamie (the eldest) and twins Brian and Elizabeth. When Betsy and Brian were in their early twenties their parents were killed in an explosion in Dr. Braddock's laboratory caused by the malfunctioning computer Mastermind.

Brian Braddock pursued post-graduate studies in Physics at Thames University, while Betsy worked as a charter pilot. Soon after Brian became the hero Captain Britain, Betsy alerted him that their brother Jamie had been injured while testing his racing car in the grounds of Braddock Manor, apparently an attack rather than an accident. She flew Brian back to the Manor, but their plane was downed as they neared it by the psychic powers of Dr. Synne; luckily both inside survived the crash. Synne subsequently mind controlled Betsy into seeing her brothers as hideous monsters, causing her to attack them, but they managed to overpower her. She was taken to the nearby Morder Research Center for treatment, unwittingly delivering her into the hands of one of Synne's agents, Dr. Ramsey. When Brian managed to defeat Synne, things only worsened; freed of Synne's mind control, Ramsey reverted to his true allegiances as an agent of the Nazi Red Skull, taking both Betsy and Jamie as hostages; both were subsequently freed by Captain Britain and his new ally, Captain America. It was after this that Betsy experienced her first reported psychic incident (there may have been earlier, unreported ones, but Synne's mind control appears to have unlocked her psychic potential, allowing it to start to grow); Betsy had a precognitive dream warning her of Brian's peril fighting the mad Lord Hawke.

Betsy quit the charter business and took up modeling; some time later, with her psychic powers growing, and after Brian had departed overseas to continue his studies, Betsy made mental contact with a S.T.R.I.K.E. Psi agent (S.T.R.I.K.E. being Special Tactical Response for International Key Emergencies, the U.K.'s equivalent of the U.N.'s S.H.I.E.L.D. agency), and was soon recruited by Agent Matthew (later renamed Gabriel), with whom she pursued a brief romance. Betsy subsequently became the lover of fellow psi, Tom Lennox. Maintaining her modeling career as a cover, at one point she attempted to infiltrate the Hellfire Club for them (her father had been a member of the London Branch's Inner Circle, holding the position of Black Bishop), but was warned off by Tessa. Betsy had lost track of her brother for many years while he was adventuring in America and other dimensions, but he returned in time to save her life when she and her fellow S.T.R.I.K.E. Psi's were targeted for assassination by Slaymaster, who had been hired by the crimelord Vixen to cover her takeover of the agency. Betsy, Tom and the sole other survivor of the Psi Division, Alison Double, sought refuge with Brian in Braddock Manor, but had to flee there after a battle between Brian, his allies the Special Executive, and the hero killing extra-dimensional cybiote the Fury. With the insane mutant reality-warper Mad Jim Jaspers taking over the country, the group sought to hide out in London, but Tom was killed and Betsy and Alison captured by government forces, and the two women ended up in a concentration camp until Jaspers' reign was brought to an end (partially through the efforts of her brother). Betsy, who had been in mental contact with Tom when he died, convalesced under the care of Victoria Bentley (an old friend of Dr. Strange and the Black Knight), whom she had met in the camp, and Victoria not only helped her heal, but taught her to harness the trauma she had felt, using it to develop and strengthen her psi powers.

Betsy eventually returned home to Braddock Manor; soon after her brother fought a counterpart of his from another reality, the villainous Pertain Briton. Briton won the encounter, and briefly took Brian's place while extradimensional mercenaries the Technet took the wrong man back to Briton's fascist reality. Briton tried to rape Betsy, but she fried his mind, killing him. Subsequently R.C.X., the agency which had replaced S.T.R.I.K.E., came to Braddock Manor seeking Captain Britain's aid; one of the agents who made the approach was Betsy's old flame, Matthew (now using the codename Gabriel). When Brian refused to work with them, they tricked him into leaving the country, then Gabriel persuaded Betsy to become the new Kaptain Britain. Using Captain Briton's costume, Betsy magnified her strength to superhuman levels when she wore it and could fly. The hero Captain UK trained Betsy in crime fighting skills and became partners for several months. Soon after opting to go solo as the new Captain, Brian's enemy the Vixen lured her into an ambush, where Slaymaster brutally beat Betsy and blinded her. Her brother came to her rescue, and once again took up the Captain Britain mantle. Betsy was offered new cybernetic eyes by RCX, but refused, preferring to rely on her telepathy; she accepted Gabriel's proposal of marriage, and the engaged couple traveled to Switzerland where they hoped Betsy could recuperate in peace.

Becoming an X-Man

Betsy's X-tream side

Betsy was kidnapped from the Alps by Mojo and surgically given artificial eyes, restoring her sight. Xavier's New Mutants rescued Betsy, and she chose to stay at the Xavier Institute. The so called "Mutant Massacre" occurred shortly thereafter, drawing Betsy into combat once more as she fought of the savage Sabretooth in a brawl throughout the mansion. Impressed by her courage, the battle-ravaged X-Men offered her a position on the team. Betsy accepted, and adopted the codename Psylocke.

In one of Psylocke's more bizarre encounters, crime lord Mats'uo Tsurayaba captured her and switched bodies with his lover Kwannon. Betsy was brainwashed into become the Lady Mandarin, but regained her free will and rejoined the X-Men. Kwannon returned later, as an X-Men ally calling herself Revanche, dying of the Legacy Virus. She had Tsurayaba kill her, still in Psylocke's British body. Betsy lived, but was now forever in Kwannon's Japanese body.

Psylocke and fellow X-Man Angel began falling in love. Sabretooth later attacked and nearly killed Betsy, having become more resistant to telepathy. Wolverine, Angel, Doctor Strange, and Gomurr the Ancient used mystical force from the Crimson Dawn dimension to save her. Kuragari, conqueror of the Crimson Dawn realm, attempted to corrupt Psylocke and make her his queen. Angel and Psylocke defeated the tyrant, but Betsy was once again forever altered. Her fighting and telepathic skills were enhanced, and she could now transport through and become one with shadows. The mark of the Crimson Dawn, a red tattoo covering her left eye, was imprinted as well.

After a brief period away from the X-Men, Betsy was tricked by the Shadow King into producing a psi-wave removing all mutant telepathy and allowing him to control every mind on Earth. Although she should have died, Betsy's Crimson Dawn powers saved her once more. In a foolish mistake, the Shadow King expanded his powers too far allowing his personal nexus to be exposed. Betsy defeated Farouk, sacrificing her telepathy to keep him trapped within her astral shadow form. Jean Grey attempted to help Betsy regain her powers safely. But in the process, she gained vast telekinetic abilities instead.

Death and resurrection

Betsy with Captain Britain and the Exiles

Soon after, Angel broke up Betsy after viewing some flirtation with Thunderbird and admitting their relationship had hit a dead end. She then joined Storm's X-Treme X-Men squad and left the Xavier Institute in search of Destiny's 13 diaries that foretell the future. In Valencia, Spain the X-Men were captured by Spain's national police and had their powers and fighting abilities tested. Separated from the team with Beast and rogue, Vargas suddenly arrived claiming to be the first of the true homo sapiens superior. The last standing, Betsy dueled Vargas and was impaled through the chest by his sword and presumed dead.

Only recently did Psylocke appear out of the blue in the exact spot she died. Running numerous tests, it was proven Betsy was the real deal. Rejoining Storm's X-Men squad, Psylocke was reunited with her friends in a more alien world where Cyclops and Emma Frost ran the Xavier Institute, presumed dead teammates Colossus and Rachel Summers were alive, and Jean Grey had seemingly died.

Her brother Jamie Braddock claimed he was responsible for Psylocke's resurrection, needing her assistance against a threat known only as the Foursaken. During this battle, Betsy was ripped from the time-stream and found herself in the Panoptichron, headquarters of the Exiles. There, she was integral in the group's restructuring after several members left to pursue their own lives elsewhere.

During her time as an Exile, she befriended the Earth-295 counterpart to her old foe Sabretooth, becoming lovers and co-leaders of the team. She also helped the team deal with threats across several worlds, including teammate Gambit's home reality of Earth-6706. During this time, the team was hunted by alternate counterparts of Susan Storm, Wolverine, and one of her deadliest foes, Slaymaster, who she eventually slew on the streets of London to save her brother and stop his cross-reality massacre of her alternate counterparts.

X-Men again

Returning to Earth-616 under unknown circumstances, Betsy was captured by a woman Scott Summers believed to be his presumed deceased ex-wife Madelyne Pryor, calling herself the Red Queen. The Red Queen had Spiral, Lady Deathstrike, and Chimera. members of her Sisterhood of Mutants, bring Betsy's original body from the grave of Kwannon to her hideout. Through a ritual the Red Queen put Betsy back into her original body. She was brainwashed into assisting the Sisterhood in attacking her fellow X-Men, providing a distraction so that the Red Queen could retrieve a lock of Jean Grey's hair. However, she was able to fight against her "inner dark side" and was restored to her Asian body, leaving her original body a corpse again. She then rejoined the X-Men. Psylocke revealed she has regained her telepathy and traveled back in time along Beast (to disguise his cat-like features) and his X-Club in order to study the birth of mutantkind and find a way to reverse M-Day.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

New Exiles

Telekinesis : Ability to psionically manipulate the physical aspects of reality. 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. Psylocke seems to find that using her telekinesis in forceful ways is easier than in delicate ways (i.e. she can shatter a brick wall more easily than she can slowly levitate a pencil across a room)

  • Telekinetic Katana : Psylocke can manifest a telekinetic katana blade composed of raw psi-energy, which at its lowest intensity, functions to disrupt neural pathways and sever the bonds between molecules, and at its highest level, her katanas can slice an armored opponent and cut through the armor, but leave the attacker physically unharmed. She can also use her swords to shatter telepathic power-inhibitors imposed on others. Psylocke's telekinetic manifestations produce visible radiance in the physical world.Thus, she can use her psychic katana as a makeshift light source in areas of darkness.
  • Enhance Physical Traits: Uses her telekinesis to enhance her speed, strength and fighting skills into super-human levels.

Telepathic Immunity: Immune to any form of others' telepathy–including telepathic attacks, probes or even attempts at communication.

Reality Warping Immunity: 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.

Telepathy: High order telepath. She possesses vast mental powers to affect and manipulate the minds of other sentient beings. Psylocke can read minds and communicate mentally with others over long distances. When she telepathically communicates with another person over a distance, that person often perceives her presence as a butterfly-like image bearing large eyes on its wings.

  • Telepathic Tracking: Enhanced psionic senses enable her to detect and track other sentient beings by their unique psionic emanations (thought patterns contained in the psionic portion of the spectrum) especially if they pose a threat to her well-being in her immediate vicinity.
  • Psychic Shadow: She is able to mask her presence from others. Her abilities can go undetected and are very difficult to track, even by very powerful telepaths such as Shadow King. She can extend these defenses to others around her as well.
  • Psychic Knife: Described as "the focused totality of her psychic powers," by intensely channeling and focusing her psionic powers to her hands to create “psychic blades”, razor-sharp edges of pure mental energy which are said to be the ultimate physical manifestation of her powers which she plunges into the minds of her targets directly. She often uses them to disrupt the neurons of her foes by driving the glowing "blade" of mental energy into their skulls. It is able to kill.
  • Mind Control: Capable of controlling the minds of others.
  • Telepathic Illusions: She has the ability to create illusions to make herself seem to be invisible, look like someone else, or make others experience events that are not truly happening.
  • Mental Paralysis: Ability to induce temporary mental or physical paralysis
  • Amnesia: Can erase any awareness of particular memories or cause total amnesia.
  • Psionic Blasts: Can project psionic force bolts which have no physical effects but which can affect a victim's mind so as to cause the victim pain, unconsciousnes,s or even death.
  • Astral Projection: Can project her astral form from her body onto astral planes or the physical planes. In the astral plane, she can mentally create psionic objects and manipulate the aspects of her environment. Under the effects of the Crimson Dawn her astral form was normally undetectable.

Shadow Teleportation (formerly): While empowered by the Crimson Dawn, Psylocke could use shadows as teleportation gates. 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.

Invisibility to all electronic detection devices (formerly): Psylocke was invisible and immune to all manner of electronic tracking and tracing in her original body. This ability did not carry over during the body switch between her and Kwannon, nor was it reapplied when she was remade by her brother, though through her brother's actions she is undetectable by certain cosmic entities and their machinations (such as the Crystal Palace's systems).

Precognition: Psylocke occasionally has precognitive dreams.

Abilities

Psylocke Psychic Knife

Master Martial Artist: Psylocke has been classified as a master martial artist, though the specific fighting arts she has mastered have never been revealed. Presumably, as a ninja, she is skilled in various Ninjutsu techniques such as Taijutsu and Ninjaken. Even though she is known as a ninja and worked for The Hand as one, her fighting skills and techniques far surpass those of the average Hand ninja or Crimson Dawn Undercloak. Her skills have been said to rival those of a ninja master.

Master Telepathic Combatant: As a telepath, Psylocke takes advantage of her powers in a fight by reading her opponents' movements seconds before they make them, giving her the opportunity to counter-attack faster, and she can also use her telepathy to mask her presence from other people, humans and super-humans alike. She also creates telepathic illusions to distract her enemies while fighting them and as a ninja, she uses her psychic knife to incapacitate her opponents without killing them, though she has less inhibitions about doing so and will if necessary.

Advanced Telekinetic Combatant: As a telekinetic, she often uses her powers to augment her strength and speed, which made her fighting skills so strong that she was able to match and even outmatch other superhumanly strong opponents like a holographic version of Sabretooth in the Danger Room. Psylocke was also able to match Rogue’s attacks during a training session, despite the fact that Rogue had greatly enhanced speed and strength at the time.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

  • Captain Britain Costume: Her Captain Britain costume gave her superhuman strength, flight and a force field. She has sometimes worn lightweight armor.
  • Bionic Eyes: Mojo gave Psylocke bionic eyes that acted as remote cameras; she lost these after being body-swapped.

    Weapons

a psonic Katana

Notes

  • Psylocke and Cypher were mutually attracted to each other, but nothing ever came of it.
  • When Psylocke was is Kwannon's body she was attracted to Cyclops, and mentally manipulated him to be attracted to her, but nothing ever came of it. She later admitted to Jean that this was due to the presence of Kwannon's lingering personality traits in her mind, but that she did in fact find Cyclops attractive.
  • Psylocke was involved in a long term relationship with Angel, but they broke up when they realized they were too different.
  • Psylocke was involved in a relationship with Thunderbird up until her death.
  • Psylocke and Beast flirted with one another in X-Treme X-Men Vol 1. It was revealed in the same comic that Dr. McCoy had a crush on Betsy when she was a supermodel.
  • Though Psylocke's earlier costumes were considered to be basically modest, she has been known lately for her unusually revealing costumes; a habit she shares with Emma Frost.

Trivia

  • In her original body, Betsy Braddock was a natural blonde.
  • In New Mutants Volume 1 Annual 2, Betsy makes her first appearance in American comics.
  • Betsy still has the knowledge of Kwannon's body.

Links

Discover and Discuss

Appearances in other media

Video Games

X-Men Animated Series

Psylocke in X-Men animated series

Psylocke appears during the fourth season of the X-Men animated series, 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). In this storyline, Psylocke appears to be a lone warrior who practices theft with a cause (ala Robin Hood). She comes into direct conflict with Archangel and, later on, Sabretooth and Mystique. She refers to her brother as fighting to help mutants, but does not name him as Captain Britain. This incarnation of Psylocke had the notable ability to fire her psychic knives, incapacitating opponents from a distance.

Psylocke also makes two quick cameos: during Season 2 in Episode 18, "Repo Man", and Episode 24, "Mojovision".

X-Men 3: The Last Stand

Mei Melançon as Psylocke

Psylocke, played by Mei Melançon, appears in the motion picture X-Men 3: The Last Stand as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants. Her character is seen dying near the end of the film during the Phoenix's rampage. Despite being credited in the film as appearing, writer Zak Penn does not seem certain, "There was some switching of character names later in production, and I'm not exactly sure how Psylocke got thrown into the mix.[1]" This, so far, is the safest explanation as to why her power was altered from the ability of unleashing psionic blasts to teleportation while blending in with darkness.

See also

See also

Links & References

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