Betsy Braddock's early X-Men identity is worth meeting on its own terms. This is the British telepath in her original body, not a later version of Psylocke being projected backw…

Betsy Braddock's early X-Men identity is worth meeting on its own terms. This is the British telepath in her original body, not a later version of Psylocke being projected backward. Her vulnerability in a physical fight and her appetite for dangerous work are both important to what happens here. In #213, Sabretooth turns the mansion into a hunting ground. Betsy faces an enemy who can kill her at close range, while other people in the house are already badly hurt. She uses the abilities she actually has and keeps going despite knowing how uneven the confrontation is. Joining the X-Men follows demonstrated courage, not merely the discovery that the roster needs a telepath. Once she is inside the team, however, courage is not the same thing as reassurance. The Havok situation in #219 reveals how severe her security thinking can become. Her attempt to interfere with Alex's memories does not settle the problem, and she raises killing him as an alternative. Storm rejects it. That is a remarkable piece of characterization for somebody so recently welcomed. Betsy is not waiting politely for the veterans to define the moral limits of the job. She has ideas about protecting the team, and some of them should make everyone else uncomfortable. Her visual presentation can make the contrast sharper, but the point goes beyond a soft-looking costume concealing toughness. She is intelligent, frightened by real dangers and capable of treating another person's autonomy as an obstacle to a necessary result. The new X-Men need her badly. That doesn't mean they can stop paying attention to how she thinks. This first stretch makes Psylocke useful, brave and troubling at once, with enough room between those qualities for a much more interesting teammate than a simple replacement telepath.