Of all the X-Men, I've always felt that Psylocke has had the most interesting and extreme design changes. The fact that she was quite literally body-swapped in the 1990 Acts of Vengeance storyline just increased her number of unique appearances. Prior to 1990, Betsy Braddock was a lavender-haired British psychic telepath. But then she was brainwashed by The Hand and body-swapped with the East Asian assassin Kwannon and refined her powers to now present as her signature "psychic knife", a pink dagger-like energy spike emanating from her fist that can scramble someone's brain. Her first appearances with her new body and powers were costumed in this Lady Mandarin battle armor. She only used that name and costume for a few issues, but they were featured on the first two covers of the iconic Jim Lee run on X-Men (issues #256-257). Even though this is my least desired Psylocke design to have in the Marvel Legends line, I can't deny how iconic it is. Let's check out Armored Psylocke below!
Psylocke comes with two heads, four hands, two orange energy effects, and her signature pink psychic knife.
I know colorists make a lot of stylistic choices, and this cover of X-Men #257 is likely meant to show a drastic lighting scenario rather than a true purple and teal combination, but I'm glad this figure's armor is blue instead of this oh-so-1990 palette.
Here's my attempt to re-create that iconic cover.
Time for a Comparison Pic!
Cheers!
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