Within the initial Chris Claremont run of Uncanny X-Men, there are a Taylor Swift tour’s worth of eras. The Phoenix era. The From the Ashes era. The no-team era.
And the Outback era.
We love the Outback era because it was sexy (thanks to Marc Silvestri’s art), it was soapy and it followed a core group of X-Men – Storm, Wolverine, Psylocke, Colossus, Rogue, Havok, Dazzler and Longshot – from key stories like “The Fall of the Mutants” to “Inferno” and beyond.
But all good things come to an end.
So, in Uncanny X-Men #251, with Storm seemingly dead, Wolverine captured, Rogue missing, Longshot already peaced-out and the Reavers bearing down on them, the four remaining X-Men decide (with some psychic nudging from Psylocke) to enter the Siege Perilous and make a fresh start.
This is how we get Havok as a Genoshan magistrate, Colossus as a painter and, most germane to this article, Psylocke as a British white woman swapped into the body of a Japanese ninja assassin for nearly 30 years.
And while we as a comics culture have long since unpacked the problematic nature of the initial body swap, and the convoluted stories that sought to explain it after the fact, Marvel has made two things abundantly clear:
- The current Psylocke, Kwannon, has found herself to be far more popular than her forebear, Betsy Braddock, the current Captain Britain. The former can be found more than monthly in Jed MacKay’s X-Men, while the latter hasn’t been seen since the most recent volume of X-Force ended last spring.
- The nostalgia minis will continue until morale improves. And since Tim Seeley has staked a claim as Marvel’s chief writer of women in bathing suits that remind older readers of other times Marvel put women in bathing suits (see Rogue: The Savage Land, Marvel Swimsuit Special), here’s another story about that time Betsy Braddock wore a bathing suit.
Check out our exclusive preview of Psylocke: Ninja #1, out next week, and keep scrolling for the basic deets.
W: Tim Seeley | A: Nico Leon | CA: Derrick Chew
BETSY BRADDOCK: MUTANT, X-MAN…NINJA! Flashback to a time when Psylocke was reborn into the ultimate killing machine. What sacrifice did Betsy make to save the X-Men? Why did the Hand choose Psylocke to be their weapon? And what does it have to do with their former assassin…Elektra?! Discover the answers to these questions and more in a lost story from the X-Men’s past!
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Buy Psylocke: Ninja #1 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)
Dan Grote is the editor and publisher of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Paul Winston Wisdom. Follow him @danielpgrote.bsky.social.
