Like a number of the X-Men‘s most famous characters, like Wolverine and X-23, Psylocke has a dark background before she became a superhero, as she was, as Marvel described it in the announcement of this series, “made for violence.” As Kwannon, she served a Japanese crimelord as a master assassin, something she was trained into becoming since she was born. However, she then suffered a major brain injury, and then subsequently lost control of her own body to the X-Man Betsy Braddock, then going by the name Psylocke. Kwannon was eventually revived in Betsy’s old body, and then died from the mutant-killing Legacy Virus. Like many other mutants, she was revived, and now in her original body, she adopted the Psylocke codename and has become one of the most reliable members of the X-Men (previously with the Hellions, and now with one of the main X-Men squads). However, she still has that other, darker side of her, and as we see in this CBR exclusive preview of next week’s Psylocke #1, that other side needs to come out at times.

Psylocke #1 is from writer Alyssa Wong, artist Vincenzo Carratù, colorist Fer Sifuentes-Sujo, and letterer Ariana Maher,and sees what Psylocke does when she is not part of Cyclops’ new X-Men strike force team that is set in Alaska, as we see that her dark side is being explored through a bold mercenary mission.

• ALYSSA WONG (W) • VINCENZO CARRATù (A) • MAHMUD ASRAR (C)
• VARIANT COVER BY TRAN NGUYEN
• VARIANT COVER BY YASMINE PUTRI
• VARIANT COVER BY STANLEY “ARTGERM” LAU
• VIRGIN VARIANT COVER BY STANLEY “ARTGERM” LAU
• VARIANT COVER BY HICHAM HABCHI
• PINK FOIL VARIANT COVER BY RICKIE YAGAWA
• LOGO VARIANT COVER ALSO AVAILABLE
• SHE WAS MADE FOR VIOLENCE!
• Trained to be an assassin since birth, Kwannon chose to be an X-Man. But there are still some jobs too dirty for the X-Men. And some paths have to be walked alone. When the mission is brutal, Psylocke unsheathes her blades to punish those who prey on mutants. Exploding out of the pages of X-MEN, Alyssa Wong and Vincenzo Carratù take Psylocke into the underbelly of the Marvel Universe, carving out her own place in a world that would rather see her under control!
• 32 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

The preview pages shows just how much this series is basically in the shadows of Psylocke’s time with the X-Men, as we see that she is late for a team meeting. We then see just WHY she is late, as she was off doing a mercenary mission, rescuing the daughter of a politician who nominally hates mutants, but as Psylocke notes when she rescues the girl, HE isn’t who she is rescuing, after all.

Carratù and Sifuentes-Sujo show off Psylocke’s ninja background beautifully in the sequence where she takes down a pile of bad guys in almost one movement, just a beautiful piece of kinetic artwork. The big difference between Kwannon now and her past exploits, though, is demonstrated nicely by Wong in that they show that Psylocke NOW uses her telepathic psi-knife to knock people out, while in the past, she would have slaughtered everyone.

Still, when you come from a dark past, and then you go and do the dirty work that other superheroes aren’t designed for, it opens up questions of how long you can continue to break free from some of her old, bad habits, especially when she is currently dating John Greycrow, who is also a notable former assassin in the X-Men’s universe.

To see what other challenges Wong has for Psylocke in this first issue, you’ll have to read the full Psylocke #1 next week.

Source: Marvel