Psylocke (Earth-295)

Psylocke
Name	Elizabeth Braddock
Current Alias	Psylocke
Aliases	Betsy Braddock
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	Formerly X-Men
Relatives	Brian Braddock (brother, deceased)
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Female
Eyes	Irises: Blue
Hair	Black
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Mutant
Living Status	Alive
Reality	Earth-295
Personal Information
Citizenship	British
Occupation	Adventurer
Base of Operations	Japan
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Akira Yoshida, Chris Bachalo
First	X-Men: Age of Apocalypse #4 (March, 2005)
First	X-Men: Age of Apocalypse #4 (March, 2005)

History

File:Psylocke (AoA) 1.jpg

Mysterious past

The past history of Elizabeth Braddock is unrevealed. She was of British descent and the brother of the Human High Council member Brian Braddock.

At some point she took on Asian characteristics and trained to become a ninja. Her attire suggests some sort of ties to Japan, however these areas of her past have yet to be explored. She has some past history with Weapon X, the details of which are also unrevealed.

X-Men

When the Guthrie family attacked the X-Men for leaving their sister Husk behind to die on a mission, Psylocke was called in to help the team fend off the attack. She used her powers to save Magneto's son Charles Lehnsherr from their clutches. When the X-Men learned of Sinister's location, Betsy joined them in their battle against Sinister and his Sinister Six.

In the battle, Psylocke battled Dagger, leaving her open to attack from Magneto. Betsy's psi powers proved instrumental in freeing Phoenix from Sinister's control, eventually leading to the evil genius' downfall and supposed death. With the battle over, Psylocke used her powers to free all of the Sinister Six members from Sinister's mind control. She also used her powers to unlock the memories of Kirika revealing that she was not a clone of Weapon X, but his biological daughter. Psylocke returned to rebuild Japan with the Silver Samurai, Kirika and Sunfire.

Attributes

Powers

Psylocke is a mutant with telepathic abilities similar if not identical to her mainstream counterpart. These include:

• Telepathy: She possesses 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. Unlike her Mainstream counterpart, this version of Psylocke can manifest two knives at once, and can cut through solid objects with them.
  • 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.
  • Telepathic Scanning: She can scan large areas of land with her mind. She can also scan the psyches of the inhabitants of a city to learn of their condition.
  • Mental Paralysis: Ability to induce temporary mental or physical paralysis
  • Amnesia: Can erase any awareness of particular memories or cause total amnesia.
  • Psychic 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, unconsciousness, 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.

Abilities

Accomplished martial artist.

Notes

• Psylocke did not appear in the original Age of the Apocalypse story arc, and it was speculated by long time X-Men fans that she was one of the many telepaths who's brains were harvested by Apocalypse to be a telepathic security perimeter to defend his citadel from attack.
  • Her appearance alive and well in the 10th Anniversary Age of Apocalypse mini-series indicates that she was not. Her inclusion of the series coincides with other characters (Beak, Wolfsbane and a character named Xorn) who were injected into the series, likely to give newer readers "familiar" characters to look for in a series they may not have been old enough to read originally.
• Why she is depicted as an Asian given the complex mainstream continuity that led to her going from being British to Asian remain unexplained. Fan speculation ranges from plastic surgery, genetic manipulation (possibly by Sinister or the Dark Beast) to the possibility that her appearance is simply a psychic illusion.

See Also

• 3 appearance(s) of Psylocke (Earth-295)
• 2 image(s) of Psylocke (Earth-295)
• 1 quotation(s) by or about Psylocke (Earth-295)

Links and References

• Psylocke on Wikipedia.org