PSYLOCKE vol 2 #5
“Hostile Hospitality”
Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artists: Vincenzo Carratù with Moisés Hidalgo
Colour artist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan

PSYLOCKE

She takes particular exception to being treated as an object to be preserved, which brings to mind her upbringing with the Hand. She thinks that the Hand regarded her not merely as a weapon but as “something to be discarded when it’s outlived its use” – the accompanying flashback in fact shows childhood friend Mitsuki being murdered in order to motivate Kwannon, but evidently she sees no real difference between the two. At least in the flashback, she feels guilty for failing to protect her best friend.

She declares that she’s spent too long hiding from her past and trying to “bury” what happened to her in order to build a new future. There’s at least a suggestion that this is why she’s chosen to take on Betsy’s Psylocke name and role instead of focussing on her own identity. The other moral that she draws from the story is that the Taxonomist’s traumatic past is not an excuse for his current behaviour, with obvious parallels to herself.

She suggests that her reluctance to kill is not a moral standard but rather a demonstration of self-control, and she defeats the Taxonomist by overloading him with emotions which, apparently, he’s not experienced before.

At Greycrow’s cabin, she sees herself in the mirror as a monstrous hybrid of herself and Betsy, with the two bodies merged and intertwined; this other “Psylocke” then apparently emerges from the mirror and starts hovering around her like a ghost, though she claims to feel fine. This obviously ties in with the Taxonomist’s descriptoin of her as “two minds pulled apart and blended together” earlier in the issue.

The Taxonomist’s needles are able to paralyse her and suppress her psychic powers, but apparently a sufficient effort of will can let her overcome the paralysis and tear herself free. She seems remarkably unaffected by the puncture wounds.

SUPPORTING CAST

Mitsuki. She shows up in flashback again; Hayashi declares that he’s been too soft on her and Kwannon, and kills Mitsuki by way of motivation.

Cyclops and the Beast appear in the epilogue, with Cyclops allowing Psylocke back on to the team after her forced leave. She hasn’t exactly complied with his instructions, so presumably he just decides not to push the point.

John Greycrow does his normal supportive partner routine in the epilogue.

VILLAIN

The Taxonomist. He isn’t a mutant, but was born with a rare genetic disease. He considers mutants to be like him in the sense that they’re all “naturally occurring mutations”, and also in that he’s “treated with hate, fear and disdain”. Basically, his obsession with mutation is his way of identifying something else that’s like him, when he was otherwise alone due to his disease.

He claims that the world can’t be fixed, and that he is simply doing what he can to preserve things that are special. In his eyes, his museum is a genuine effort to preserve beloved things so that they will never truly die and they can be appreciated for all time. He’s decided that Kwannon and Betsy will be the centrepiece of his gallery, apparently because of their uniquely confused mental link.

By all appearances, this seems to be sincere. He isn’t actively malicious so much as completely devoid of empathy, and seems not to identify with others as actual people, at least unless it’s drawn to his attention directly. In his eyes, he’s taken great care to prepare his Psylocke exibit and he seems surprised that she isn’t happier about it – even though he’s pinned her to a wall. He could be being sarcastic, but it’s played much more as if he’s fundamentally missing something about the situation. Certainly, Psylocke regards the solution to him as being to force him to experience the emotions (or perhaps empathy) that he normally lacks.

He acknowledges this as a new experience, though he might just be talking about the intensity of it, rather than suggesting that he lacks emotions as such. Indeed, at least one of the flashbacks in the emotional montage shows the Taxonomist himself as a child (representing “loneliness”).

Master Hayashi. He shows up again in flashback to kill Mitsuki.

OTHER FOOTNOTES

Page 4: The Taxonomist’s Psylocke display contains memorabilia about both Kwannon and Betsy Braddock (mostly the latter), some of which seems to be just junk like an old shoe. The display case at bottom right contains a dummy wearing Psylocke’s current costume, and the one on the left has her Australian-era armoured costume from the late 1980s. A third one is just visible, which seems to be a standard X-Men uniform. Psylocke’s “homing kunai” from the last couple of issues are on the table in the foreground.

There are several paintings on the back wall. One shows Betsy and Kwannon (as Psylocke and Revanche) fighting each other. Another shows Betsy at her brother Brian Braddock’s graduation – it’s a redrawn panel from Captain Britain vol 2 #1.

Page 14: The flashbacks on the right hand side include two panels showing Kwannon (as Revanche) displaying her Legacy Virus infection and, moments later, dying at the top of a stairway while talking to her former lover Matsuo Tsurayaba, all in X-Men #31 (1994). These are the panels captions “fury” and “heartbreak”.