Psylocke #1 Review

Writer: Christ Yost

Artist: Harvey Tolibao

From glorified cameo queen to B-List superstar, our dear Psylocke has come a long way. Psylocke fans, don't flip your shit over that though, she may be no A-List Emma Frost, Cyclops, Wolverine, or any of that, but considering Fraction's reign and ruining of some these said characters, I think we can be grateful for B-List status. As she is my second favorite X-Man, I have to say I'm absolutely thrilled at Psylocke's promotion to this limited series. Anyway, girl's got the upgrade and I almost find her becoming sort of like the X-Men's Spider-Woman. Rising in popularity without becoming too A-List and having her personality removed. And I guess they both have British accents? (According to the Motion comic, Jessica does.)

Also, apparently the artist of this mini series is Harvey Taliboa. You may recognize dear Harvey as I did from Ultimate X-Men #93 where he also drew Psylocke, briefly. He's generally good, but I do have to say the way he works his pencils leaves action scenes looking a bit too cluttered and confusing.

The issue opens with the X-Kids being in trouble on Fracking Rock. Psylocke and Diva Daz show up to steal the show with Diva shooting out a laser that apparently...did nothing? Like they use her powers, but it's as if these powers are just meant to distract people on PCP. Anyway, Psylocke takes center stage and takes care of Sack with psychic suggestion mentioning how she could tell him to die. I consider this a much neglected idea about the psychics, the fact that they could be like {Die!} and most peeps would be like, "Fuck yes!" Seriously, I even have this idea for a scene where Emma witnesses someone die gruesomely in front of her in a massive battle, and she snaps and starts death commanding the fuck out of the enemies causing everyone to turn to stopping her. I of course have LOADS more ideas for this story, but that would totally be a badass psychic moment I would do. Anyway, it's awkward to see Betsy philosophizing murder with the kids, but whatever, her butterfly is totally gorg.

Moving on, Betsy goes to see her original body which is all corpsiriffic, and Emma says that she's never looked better. And Dazzler throws a bitch fit. Which is interesting for a couple reasons: as if Emma's joke really would piss anyone off that much. Also, I have to say I hate Emma appearances now because every writer seems to want to try out being a bitch with her now even though they didn't pre-locked-in-diamond. This is bull. Emma was a MEAN bitch before Fraction and I'm really hoping some writers will remember this post-Void. At least Betsy mentions finding Emma amusing, meaning she appreciates that Emma is just bitchy but not always actively out for a fight. The way she puts it also suggests she knows that this is always Emma. Although what she means by Emma being transparent is a WTF for me. How the hell is Emma being transparent by making one sarcastic remark??

Ok, last panel of this image, something I've been wondering for a LONG time about Psylocke is how she's maintained her unnaturally colored hair. She's not Polaris, who's mutation originally was green hair, and she's not Surge who's usually close to home enough to get the dye job done. Betsy's lived in the Australian outback, wanered around the Multiverse, and just gone everywhere, where does she get A. The time B. The dye itself? Seriously, was there an underground Hot Topic in Australia? Like this isn't just a hair color you pick up at your local Rite Aid, is her secondary mutation producing hair dye for when those nasty roots come in?

Psylocke decides to take the body back to Japan and Logan makes one of his sage-like appearances as the man who's done it all and has had shit done to him and like totally knows life. As if every other X-Man's struggles are totally discounted and they'll never know true meaningfulness. This time he doesn't so much dole out advice, but it's implied that this is his function in this scene and he in a roundabout way does something remarkable. That is when Betsy talks to him she realizes he hasn't changed and it's sort of like a sigh of relief for her that for once she has someone who's just like she remembered them. I fear for his re-appearance though.

I LOVE that Yost remembered to put in that Betsy was an original blonde and that her former job was being a pilot. Seriously, Yost does an amazing job reminding us of Betsy's past. Also, I love the mention of why she can fly the X-Jet because I feel like it's assumed any X-Men can fly the fucking thing which is sort of funny considering it's a fucking JET.

What I'd be curious to see is a reminisce back to the days where Betsy worked as one of the government's psychics AND more importantly, when Diva was a model. Especially since I'd love to hear why her hair was dyed purple as a model considering anyone who's seen ANTM for a couple episodes knows that that'd be a bad idea. Also, it'd be cool if during the closing scene, instead of just the usual strut she gets all high fashion runway with her hands on her hips and atittude everywhere and is all, "Bish! I may be a ninja/psychic/objectified female character now, but I used to WORKKK the runway!" Actually, speaking of modeling:

What the almighty fuck is with her sashes?
Are they sentient?!

Seriously, it's bad enough half the entire issue she's working the wind-in-the-hair when there's no other indication of a breeze or her even moving, but her sashes are always doing the same thing. I was sort of surprised to not see them poking out when she was sitting in the jet. Does she have to feed the bitches or do they just get their fill from always voguing it out? Or does this explain her almost total absence of her telekinesis since she's been back? She's just using it to animate her sashes and hair all the time so she seems like a f#$@ing Greek goddess? Either way, I'm totally going to be on sash watch this series.

OMG, someone remembers she's still telekinetic?!

Backtracking, up until this point she's been on her way to Japan, Japan's like "No more mutants!" and she's like "Forget this shit, I'm psychically manipulating you!" Then ninjas attack. And from there they destroy her body and she gets all, "I'm gonna kill Bill" about Mats'uo. End issue. To conclude, sadness for British body, pick up this issue if you're a Psylocke fan, if not I'd say get it if you have a bit of extra cash. OH and don't bother reading the Hope backstory, it's as boring as Cable. Which I wish was a commonly used simile. Like it's the new "It's as fun as watching paint dry." Now it's all, "It's about as fun as reading an issue of Cable." Anyway, here endeth the review.