Psylocke is also known as Betsy Braddock, the sister to Jamie Braddock and Brian Braddock.
She is one of Marvel’s UK superheroes and mutants who has even taken her twin brother,
Brian’s place as Captain Britain before.
When thinking on Psylocke, you might first think of her as a member of the X-Men and
X-Force.
You might think of her psychic katanna or dagger and her skills as a telepath and telekinetic.
But beyond that, she has many other talents and powers as well.
Today we are going to look at some of her other abilities as we count down the top 10
superpowers you didn’t know Psylocke had.
And if you love this somewhat confusing body-swapping omega-level mutant as much as we do, be sure
to give this video a thumbs up.
And be sure to stick around till the end of this list, where I will have some bonus content
coming your way.
Alright, let’s get counting.
10 Ninja Assassin Fighting
Although she also uses her telekinetic abilities a lot in a fight, and I mean, a lot, Betsy
doesn’t need to rely on them to beat someone in hand to hand combat.
Her skills as a ninja assassin have been reinforced on a few different occasions.
At one point she was trained by the Hand but she also inhabited the body and for awhile
kind of the mind of Kwannon, a skilled ninja assassin, who she body swapped with in a controversial
and pretty ridiculous storyline.
And who also seemed to have purple hair, possibly even natural purple hair as opposed to Betsy’s
original’s body’s dyed purple hair.
Betsy also became such a skilled assassin that she even admitted during her time on
Cable’s X-Force that she was addicted to killing.
9 Telepathic Link & Twin Bond
This power feels like it’s almost based off of folklore.
Betsy and her twin brother, Brian share a unique connection, they have a strong telepathic
link to one another.
This link has actually helped the twins to sense when the other is in danger and rush
to their side to help them.
People have often believed that they time shared in the womb allows even twins in the
real-world to share an almost psychic link to one another, sensing on another’s emotions
or physical states even while separated.
Studies have even been conducted on the subject.
And while I don’t think it makes a lot of sense, I know my twin sisters have experienced
some pretty freaky twin telepathy moments.
Beyond being linked to her brother, Psylocke has the capacity to be linked with just about
anyone.
When her mutant powers surfaced she found herself instantly and overwhelmingly telepathically
linked to millions of people, not having much control over them just yet.
This caused her much grief initially.
Though it has proved a useful power throughout her development.
8 Spy
Psylocke is a master of shadows for many reasons, one including her prowess as a spy.
She worked a spy agent in the psi-division of STRIKE, the Special Tactical Reserve for
International Key Emergencies, for a time.
An oddly conveniently cool acronym for what was basically MI6 with a wider net.
During her time working as a psi-agent for STRIKE she would plot to infiltrate the Hellfire
Club.
She worked on the STRIKE force undercover with her cover life being that of a working
fashion model.
Pun intended.
This was also the time we saw Betsy make a dramatic change to her hair.
Up until this point it had always matched her twin brother Brian, aka Captain Britain’s
blonde colour but she would then start dying it purple and never look back.
Her purple hair has since become an iconic part of her look.
7 Astral Projection
Using her telepathy, Psylocke can project her astral form, allowing her to explore the
astral or physical plane outside of her body.
While on the astral plane she can use her abilities to alter the environment around
her and even create psionic weapons much like she can while inhabiting her body on the physical
plane.
There was even a time where she was undetectable in her astral form.
That being said she can still easily be harmed while in her astral form when facing those
who are stronger than her like in Uncanny X-Men volume one when she went up against
Mister Sinister.
6 Force Fields
Beyond having the physical and tactical skills to take down an opponent, Pyslocke can also
guard against physical attacks when she wants to and even shield herself from things like
magical explosions or fire.
Using her telekinesis abilities she can construct a force field around herself and others to
protect from incoming attacks.
It isn’t an effortless ability however as it does require a lot of mental strength and
focus on her part.
5 Psionic Blasts
In a fight against Archangel, Psylocke used this newfound power to knock him out.
Her psionic blasts can be deadly actually, despite the fact that they don’t inflict
physical damage.
Instead these blasts attack Psylocke’s opponents mentally though they can still inflict mental
pain.
Psylocke is also capable of wielding this psionic energy on such a level that she could
also create an explosion.
4 Magic Immunity
After Jamie Braddock resurrected Psylocke, she was brought back with some different abilities.
While she no longer had her shadow transportation power, she found she was now immune to telepathic
or telekinetic interference and Jamie even insisted that she had a resistance to magic,
specifically reality-altering magic.
He apparently had made sure she was brought back in this way as he needed her in order
to defeat the Foursaken.
3 Pilot
While it might not be as interesting as some of her other professions and power-sets based
around being a spy and ninja, way before any of that happened, back in the original Captain
Britain, volume one, Betsy was known for her skills as a pilot.
Truth be told, we never really got to see said skills but they were acknowledged by
her brother, Brian Braddock.
Betsy seemed more to downplay them and then while flying a light hit her and caused her
to hallucinate and crash.
Not really her fault but didn’t really add any hype.
Still based on what Brian said in issue 8 of volume 1, we can assume that Betsy was
an accomplished charter pilot.
2 Flight
You may know of Psylocke’s famous butterfly aura that surround her eyes and face while
using her telekinetic abilities.
Likewise she can also use her telekinesis to give herself metaphorical wings and allow
her to take flight.
Though she is also sometimes pictured with that neon pink butterfly-wing like aura on
her back while flying, so sometimes it does actually look like she has wings.
Which is also kind of fitting considering how romantically close she and fellow X-Men,
Angel have been over the years.
This seems to be an ability that writers sometimes forget though as she doesn’t use it that
frequently.
You can see her take flight in the Uncanny X-Men series from 2016, volume four.
1 Invisibility
When you think of Psylocke you may think of her stealth abilities.
She is a spy, a ninja, an assassin and has been known to shadow teleport.
But what you might not think when it comes to her stealth is her power of invisibility.
This power comes from her telekinesis skills.
Although it’s not often seen, she has used it before in the comics.
This combined with her astral projection abilities makes her an even more stealthy mutant than
you might initially suspect.
Though, as we’ve seen, it doesn’t do anything when it comes to cloaking her from Mister
Fantastic.
Unsurprisingly trying to use invisibility powers to sneak up on a man who is married
to the Invisible Woman is not the most effective way to use this ability.
Thank you for watching, nerd squad.
I hope you learned something knew about Psylocke and her abilities.
I feel like, depending on who is writing her, there is just so much she can do.
She’s such a multifaceted character and superhero.
What are some of your favourite Psylocke moments?
What was your favourite version of her character?
How do you feel about her swapping bodies, slash merging with Kwannon Let us know in
the comments below.
And speaking of comments, it’s time to turn to some comments from one of our latest videos,
Top 10 Superheroes Who Don’t Know How to Use Their Powers Properly.
Comrade20 says, “Imagine being a hero but no knowing how your powers work.
Why training is important.
Love your video, top 10 nerd.”
Thank you I’m glad you enjoyed it.
And that is a good point.
One thing I think heroes should learn about more is in-comics physics and sciences.
Understanding how their powers work exactly would likely also help them to figure out
how to best utilize them.
And would also help us to understand them more as well.
Hahaha.
Even if real-world physics likely don’t really apply.
Bat Signal comments, “What about Cyclops?
The guy loses his shades and he turns into a bazooka with legs!”
I mean yeah if Cyclops loses his visor or glasses depending on the depiction, you might
wanna duck but also he has studied and trained hard over the years to actually become a master
of his powers.
With his visor and insane super trigonometry skills, he is highly adept with his powers.
Which is why I felt it was unfair to include him.
He works so hard!
And that’s all the time we have for comments today.
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