BIOGRAPHY - Page 6
When Psylocke reappeared, she found herself in the Exiles’ Crystal Palace. The situation was tense at first, especially since the team included an alternate Sabretooth whom she immediately attacked, but after some misunderstandings she realized they were heroes as well. [Exiles (1st series) #90-91]
She decided to help them on their mission on Earth-1720, which entailed killing Reed Richards to prevent the death of that dimension. Despite their mission, the Exiles soon joined Richards in his fight against his own wife, Madame Hydra, and her allies. Along the way, Psylocke fought an alternate version of her nemesis, Slaymaster. She got away before the fight was decided but Slaymaster was now obsessed with her and began killing Psylocke analogues across the multiverse. The whole universe Psylocke and the team were in was destroyed and they were seemingly lost forever. The team reappeared back in the palace but they soon realized they had been gone for six months. Psylocke decided to stay with the team and continue helping troubled realities. [Exiles (1st series) #92-95]
When the rest of the team travelled to another world in peril, Psylocke stayed behind and got used to her new base. As she slept that night, she had a dream of a man and his wife, who warned her of a great danger befalling the multiverse. She knew this was more than a simple dream and that the couple were most likely some kind of gods. When she woke, she was startled to see an alternate version of Kitty Pryde suddenly appear in the palace. Just as she calmed the young girl down, they were ambushed by some armed soldiers who managed to knock Psylocke out. When she woke, Psylocke discovered they were sent from the very reality the rest of the team had gone to save. With the help from another Exile, Thunderbird, Psylocke managed to break free and take out the soldiers, only to watch as the reality the Exiles were in suddenly vanished. Fortunately, the team was alright, having only been scattered across the multiverse. [Exiles (1st series) #96-99]
Psylocke decided to let everyone in her home reality know that she was alive, so she paid a visit to her brother. Unfortunately, things did not go according to plan and Brian was shot by a mysterious assassin. Psylocke took him and his team back to the Crystal Palace, where they discovered that Merlyn was making an attack that threatened the entire omniverse. Though his plan ultimately failed, Psylocke saw how important the Exiles were to ensuring the survival of all realities. The team had lost a number of its members and so Psylocke chose to stay with them and returned to the Crystal Palace. [X-Men: Die by the Sword #1-5, Exiles (1st series) #100]
Psylocke took some time to get to know her new teammates, including the alternate Sabretooth. They were soon called to action to help out a world being torn apart by political feuding. Psylocke and Sabretooth found themselves in the company of one of the world’s leaders, Queen Ororo, whilst the rest of the team were contending with the other, Namor. As they navigated the tense situation, a third party led by the Black Panther surfaced and it was partially thanks to Psylocke that they were saved. [New Exiles #1-4]
On another world on which the team landed, Psylocke was suddenly overtaken by a mysterious force and she flew halfway around the planet to Shanghai. There she found the body of her counterpart on that world, only the eyes had been ripped out. Realizing that it was the work of the Slaymaster she had encountered a few worlds ago, she damned herself for not dealing with him properly. She was suddenly knocked out and, when she awoke, she found herself scarred with the Crimson Dawn mark. Ogun, the man who knocked her out, explained that his protégé Lady Mandarin, Psylocke’s alternate version, was killed by the Slaymaster and he wanted to train Psylocke in her place. When Lady Mandarin died, part of her had taken over Psylocke and now the two women were housed in the same body. Psylocke trained with Ogun and managed to excel under his tutelage but she couldn’t rid herself of Lady Mandarin or the altered body she was in. Ogun sent her to assassinate a key political figure in the world but, when she arrived, she discovered it was a trick and Ogun had essentially sold her to the man. Still, Psylocke managed to overcome Lady Mandarin’s influence and turn the tables him. As a result, she managed to help end a war that had been raging across the planet. [New Exiles #7-10]
The Lady Mandarin persona stuck around for a bit but, after a psychic battle, Psylocke won and the mind was expelled from her body. Whilst the Crimson Dawn tattoo faded, Psylocke knew that she needed to face the Slaymaster to finally end the bloodshed. [New Exiles #14]
She finally got her chance to fight him when the Exiles discovered his team was on one of the worlds they were visiting. There Psylocke engaged Slaymaster in hand to hand combat and her training with Ogun paid off. She managed to pin him to the ground and was ready to kill him but, when he begged for his life, she took pity and let him go. However, as soon as she turned away, he attempted to kill her, only to be stopped by Sabretooth. Vowing revenge, Slaymaster teleported away once more. [New Exiles #17]
The situation with Slaymaster didn’t get any better, as he continued his slaughter across the multiverse. Every time he killed an alternate version of her, Psylocke could feel her other self die. She had no way of tracking where he was, so she decided to lure him out by going back to her home world. She visited her brother, Captain Britain, and sure enough Slaymaster showed up. Another brutal fight ensued in which Brian was seriously injured trying to help his sister. Psylocke managed to get the upper hand over her adversary and this time she didn’t hesitate in killing him. As she did so, she felt the souls of every murdered version of her finally find peace. After making sure Brian was okay, Psylocke returned to the Exiles, where she finally gave in to her feelings for Sabretooth and kissed him. [X-Men: Sword of the Braddocks]
Psylocke stayed with the Exiles for a while but, back in her home reality, a plan was being formed that would bring her back. The disembodied spirit of Madelyne Pryor was making a bid to find herself a body to inhabit and the best match was Jean Grey, the woman from whom she had been cloned. To make sure she would survive the transplant procedure, she needed to conduct a test using subjects in a similar situation. Madelyne retrieved Psylocke’s original body that housed the spirit of Revanche and then used magic to pull Psylocke across the multiverse and back to her home reality. Spiral healed Revanche’s body as much as possible and then Psylocke’s psyche was taken out of her Japanese body and put back into the original British one. With the test a success, Psylocke was brainwashed by Madelyne and drafted into the Sisterhood in preparation for the final part of the plan. As Madelyne made a play for Jean’s body, the rest of the Sisterhood attacked the X-Men. Psylocke squared off against Dazzler but ended up getting half her face burnt off for the trouble. The momentary surge of pain brought Psylocke back to her senses and she stabbed herself with her own psychic dagger before she could do any more damage. On the astral plane, Psylocke fought against her darker side and came out victorious. With her original body once again too damaged to inhabit, her mind went back to the Japanese one. Madelyne and the Sisterhood were defeated but the upshot was that Psylocke was once again back with her friends. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #508-511]
One of the side effects of Madelyne’s procedure was that, once again, Psylocke’s powerset had altered slightly. As well as retaining her telekinesis, she also redeveloped a level of telepathy too. This was fortunate, as Beast had need for this when he whisked her and his science team into the past to study the beginning of the modern mutant boom. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #512]
Psylocke was also dragged into the war that Norman Osborn waged against the X-Men. The mutant team had relocated to San Francisco in Psylocke’s absence but they soon had need to move once more to the new island of Utopia, situated just off the coast of the city, [Utopia crossover]
As Psylocke adjusted to the ever-changing life amongst the X-Men again, she needed to tie up loose ends and bury her original body once again. Taking it to Japan, she prepared to have it buried in a private ceremony, but when a cadre of Hand ninjas ambushed the funeral and obliterated it she was furious. Knowing that it was Matsu’o Tsurayaba’s doing, she set off to find and kill him for the unprovoked assault. She cut a bloody path through the Japanese underworld, slowly getting closer to Matsu’o, but in doing so she attracted the attention of an old ally, Yukio. Unfortunately, she discovered Yukio had been tasked by Wolverine to protect Matsu’o from harm and she and Psylocke came to blows. Just as soon as she beat Yukio, Psylocke was attacked by another assassin calling himself Jinn. Only this time, he made it clear that he wanted the honor of killing Matsu’o before her. He too had been attacked by Matsu’o and had lost his wife in the carnage. As Jinn flew off, Psylocke realized there was a bigger picture she wasn’t seeing yet. It all became clear when she finally caught up with Matsu’o and saw what had become of him since they last met. Years before, Matsu’o had killed Wolverine’s love, Mariko Yashida. Ever since then, Wolverine visited him on the anniversary of her death and hacked a body part off him. Matsu’o was now brutally scarred and needed a nurse around him at all times to keep going on. He had attacked Psylocke and Jinn in the hopes of provoking one of them into killing him, as he was unable to take his own life.
Just as she discovered this, Wolverine showed up and told her he wasn’t going to allow her to kill Matsu’o. The two friends fought and a great deal of blood was spilled. Psylocke realized she was tired of fighting, not just Wolverine but against everything else in her life. She laid down her weapons and gave her friend the opportunity to kill her and put her out of her misery. Not able to kill a friend, Wolverine walked away, giving her his blessing to kill Matsu’o. Knowing that he would kill everyone she ever loved unless she ended his life, Psylocke said her final goodbyes to Matsu’o. Showing that she wasn’t a soulless killer, she used her powers to create an illusion where Matsu’o was back with his true love, Kwannon. Psylocke then thrust her dagger into his mind and he fell off the cliff into the sea. [Psylocke #1-4]
Psylocke soon found herself teaming up with the mercenary Fantomex against the newly re-emerged threat of John Sublime. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #520-521] When the ancient mutant Selene unleashed her plan to become a goddess, she sent an army of undead mutants to attack the X-Men. Psylocke and a team of X-Men flew to Muir Island to combat the resurrected Proteus. Most of the team, Psylocke included, was possessed by the crazed, reality-warping mutant. It was a combination of Rogue and Magneto who beat him and dispersed his energies. [Necrosha crossover]
Psylocke was part of the task force sent to find and retrieve Hope Summers, the now teenaged “messiah child,” when she returned from the future to the present. The evil Sentinel Bastion was nearing his endgame to wipe out all mutants and the race was on to get to Hope. She was eventually found and taken to Utopia, which Bastion subsequently encased in a force field and unleashed thousands of Sentinels upon them. Psylocke was one of the many mutants on the frontline on the battlefield, where Hope eventually destroyed Bastion. [Second Coming crossover]