|
Captain Britain
| |
|
| |
|
Real Name
|
Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock
|
|
First Appearance
|
Captain Britain (vol. 1) #8 (December, 1976)
|
|
Creators
|
Chris Claremont, Herb Trimpe
|
|
Team Affiliations
|
X-Men, Captain Britain Corps, Excalibur, Exiles, The Hand, X-Force
|
|
Aliases
|
Psylocke, Lady Briton, Lady Mandarin
|
|
Base of Operations
|
Krakoa
|
|
Powers
|
Telekinesis, Telepathy, Precognition, Ability to construct weapons made of psychic energy, usually in the form of a blade
|
|
Skills and Abilities
|
Expert martial artist
|
|
Paraphenalia
|
Amulet of Right
|
Captain Britain (Betsy Braddock) is a superheroine in the Marvel Universe, a longtime member of the X-Men and the sister of former Captain Britain, Captain Avalon.
Origin[]
Betsy Braddock was born a mutant with telepathic powers. After her body was switched with the empathic assassin Kwannon and their DNA was mingled, Betsy absorbed elements of her personality and her skills, becoming the psychic ninja Psylocke. When the two switched back, Kwannon became Psylocke and Betsy became the new Captain Britain after her brother gave up the role.
History[]
Betsy in Kwannon’s body as Psylocke
Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock was born in England and was raised in the small town of Maldon, Essex. Betsy was Sir James Braddock's second child and she, her twin brother Brian, and elder brother Jamie had a very privileged life. By the time their parents died, Betsy had become a charter pilot. After she and Jamie were taken hostage by the Red Skull's agents and freed by Captain America and Captain Britain, Betsy learned the latter was her brother Brian. At this time Betsy began to develop precognitive powers. She dyed her hair purple and took up modeling. At the age of sixteen, her psychic powers fully manifested, which grew to include telepathy. Agent Matthew recruited Betsy into S.T.R.I.K.E.'s Psi Division, and she became fellow psi Tom Lennox's lover. As she had inherited membership to the Hellfire Club from her father, Betsy was sent to infiltrate it, but was warned off by Tessa for her own protection. She also met future boyfriend Warren Worthington for the first time during one of the Hellfire Club parties.
When her brother Brian retired from superheroics, Betsy became the new Captain Britain, only to be attacked and blinded by the villain known as Slaymaster. Betsy was later kidnapped by the interdimensional monster Mojo and given bionic eyes and the codename of Psylocke. She was rescued by her brother (who had become Captain Britain again) and the New Mutants. Psylocke then became a member of the X-Men.
Betsy is restored to her original body
During a mission, Psylocke was thrown through a portal called the Seige Perilous and was transported to Japan. There, Mojo’s assistant Spiral helped Yakuza leader Matsu’o Tsurayaba use Psylocke’s telepathy to restore the damaged mind of his lover, Kwannon. But Spiral tricked Matsu’o and instead used her magic to swap the two women’s minds and intermingle their DNA. Matsu’o tried to make Psylocke believe she was Kwannon, but when she fought Wolverine she regained her memories and rejoined the X-Men. Kwannon (in Betsy’s body) joined the X-Men as well as Revanche, but died after she contracted the deadly Legacy virus and in her final moments transferred all of her psychic powers to Psylocke.
Betsy as Captain Britain
During a fight with the evil psychic parasite, the Shadow King, Psylocke lost her telepathy sealing him away. When Phoenix tried to help her, Psylocke ended up gaining Phoenix’s telekinetic powers.
A soul eating vampire called Sapphire Styx removed Psylocke’s soul from Kwannon’s body and tried to consume it, but Psylocke was able to instead take the energy of all the souls Sapphire had eaten and use it to recreate her original body. This also allowed Kwannon’s soul to return to her original body.
Betsy was asked to become Captain Britain again after her brother became corrupted by dark magic.
Powers and Abilities[]
Betsy Braddock initially only had a limited precognitive power to see glimpses of the future, but then her mutant powers fully manifested and she became a powerful telepath. Betsy could use her telepathy to read minds, communicate mentally with others, control people’s minds, and create mental illusions by psychically altering the perceptions of others. Her most powerful gift was the ability to fire “psycho-blasts”, bolts of psychokinetic energy that could overload human brains or hit a target with concussive force.
After her mind and aspects of her DNA were swapped with Kwannon’s, Betsy found she had more specialized telepathy and that while she no longer had her psycho-blasts in this new body, she could create a dagger of pure psychic energy (which she called a “psi-knife”) that could disrupt the nervous system of anybody she stabbed with it.
Through mysterious means, Betsy lost her telepathy but gained Phoenix‘s telekinesis. She could now move objects with her mind, fire force blasts, create mental force fields and even fly. Betsy could also create swords of psionic energy that could cut through almost anything.
When a psychic vampire stole Betsy’s soul from Kwannon’s body, Betsy was able access the stolen soul energies the vampire had consumed to create a new version of her original body, complete with her original telepathic powers and her new telekinetic ones. In addition to her psychic sword she could also create a psychic shield.
TV Shows and Movies[]
- Movies: X-Men the Last Stand, X-Men Apocalypse.
- Shows: X-Men The Animated Series, Wolverine and the X-Men.