Betsy received some serious training from an alternate Ogun and wasn't exactly a pushover before that... but without her teke shenanigans, I'm not sure she could handle the Mandarin. It's hard to forget about her rather disappointing performance against Daredevil.
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She’s good but I’d take mandarin here for a solid majority. I’m sure she has some good h2h feats that I’m forgetting but she doesn’t usually dominate h2h.
Gender: Male Location: Planning to take over the WORLD!
i remember the arc (acts of vengeance maybe?) but i don't think they went at it h2h. they fought in a...hologram or something? or am i butchering it? regardless, pretty sure they never met h2h though he was controlling her for a time.
Had to be Acts of Vengeance, yes. That was the time when the X-Men faced the Mandarin. He did resist Betsy's telepathy. But I don't know if he beat her h2h...
Anyhow, Betsy's had a considerable skill boost since AoV.
Here's the sad truth about Psylocke. If you break down most of her fights,she relies on her TK to amp, TP to move read, and her psi-blade to one shot. It's pretty well established she amps herself, as she explains when sparring Rogue. Despite Rogue's vastly superior stats, she got parried left and right. https://postimg.cc/image/iv91w3b0b/ https://postimg.cc/image/s31acspsb/
We can look at some of her victories.
vs Wolverine: She's beat Wolverine several times, so she's a top martial artist right? Nope. She beats Wolverine because of her powers. She's admitted to reading his moves telepathically. She's used her psiblade on him multiple times, which generally one-shots. Even in their post-Ogun fight, her punches made explosions, indicating TK amping. Not pure martial arts, although you could argue she needed the extra damage due to his healing factor.
vs Omega Red: TP
vs Mystique: TP
vs Fantomex: TK and TP
vs Future Deadpool & Raze: We didn't see all of it. She did have the upper hand, but had her psi-blade out.
In pure/mostly hand-to-hand, there was Daredevil, Typhoid Mary, and Raizo Kodo off the top of my head. She looked skilled, but far from top tier. Mandarin should take her solidly here. It would be a pretty high end feat if she won in a comic with only martial arts.
She's skilled, but she is definitely on the B squad. And this is coming from a Psylocke fan...
Last edited by StyleTime on Aug 24th, 2018 at 07:47 PM
Psylocke clearly says it's her will that's doing the parrying, but her TK is what's causing the walls to blow up:
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So she's not using TK to amp. She's doing KK-level (or even Mandarin) stuff, i.e. her skill is allowing her to match strength with vastly superior foes.
They aren't mutually exclusive. At least, that's not how I read it. Saying "I'm not just a skilled martial artist" in answer to Rogue's question seems to indicate something else was at play. I think she was using TK to block/parry the punches, since even a glancing blow should send her flying otherwise. Willpower/Focus/whatever is usually tied to your TK.
She started TKing the wall to further demonstrate her imagination.
It syncs better with later showings like against Wolverine too.
While I see what you're saying, it just seems like she peppers her strikes, blocks, and such with TK when she needs to. I'm not quite ready to say she's doing Temugin/Mandarin/KarateKid stuff.
Last edited by StyleTime on Aug 24th, 2018 at 08:35 PM
True, and that's why I'm not saying Dark is necessarily wrong. I just interpret it differently.
I'd argue telekinesis usually requires visual cues to avoid confusion. In the 2nd panel, where Psylocke says "surely you remember all those tedious briefings?", it would look like Psylocke kicked off of Rogue it we didn't have the pink visual cues for her TK. Or farted really hard.
While they were in melee, the TK was supposed to be hidden, so we didn't see her pink signature energy. Otherwise, we wouldn't even need their dialogue. We'd automatically know Psylocke was TK amping, like with Wolverine. We didn't need expository dialogue since we saw the effects the whole fight.
My take on it anyway. I'm interested in hearing others' thoughts on it actually. I might be in the minority.
Last edited by StyleTime on Aug 24th, 2018 at 08:51 PM
You're not in the minority - battleboards always use that X-Treme X-Men encounter as an example for Betsy enhancing her MA performance with TK - but I also feel it should be discussed more thoroughly.
To be fair now, Mandarin is not exactly that great, either.
Sure, his striking power is formidable, but he lacks other feats. Betsy is far more versatile here, imho.
That's reasonable I suppose. I just think his strikes will do so much damage in such a short amount of time it will be hard for baseline Psylocke to deal with. We could make the argument she's faster of course, but then we could also credit Mandarin for matching Iron Man. On the other hand, Gambit is on panel faster than Iron Man's targeting computer, having success in up close battle with Tony. https://postimg.cc/image/3sk0bxgaz/
And Gambit is probably not that much faster than Psylocke. If you think the Rogue showing was just skill or that her turning off Omega Red's drain ability didn't affect much when she fought him, this might be a more competitive fight then.
Last edited by StyleTime on Aug 26th, 2018 at 06:37 AM
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