UNCANNY X-MEN #256: The Key That Breaks the Locke

Hey sister soul sister flow sister go sister -- creole Lady Mandarin!

Let's get my obligatory "I inked this!" gag out of the way.

Originally Published December 1989

We begin in Hong Kong, where the mysterious and be-mulletted Matsuo Tsurayaba, emissary of the Ninja Assassin group The Hand, has murdered his way into the home of none other than legendary Marvel villain The Mandarin to make him a professional offer. 

At first the Mandarin balks, given that he is the possessor of 10 Power Rings, even one of which could be used to obliterate Matsuo as easily as snapping one's finger. Mat counters that if the power rings are so great, why does Iron Man spank the Mandarin every chance he gets?

Since the Mandarin loves being negged, he opts to hear Matsuo out. 

Elsewhere -- we are not told exactly where -- young twins Brian and Elizabeth Braddock are enjoying a carousel. Passive, bookish Brian sits still and reads but Betsy gets so into the fantasy that she finds her ride transformed into a real life fighter jet.

The twins are ushered away by caretaker "Mr. Mojo" and his statuesque colleague, but not before young Bess is given a parting gift of a mysterious ring that someone found on the ground. 

The twins bicker and clash, momentarily taking on the fantastical appearance of He-Man and She-Ra before finding another ring for Betsy's collection. They are then visited by their older brother Jamie, who offers Betsy a chance to drive his Ferrari and indulge her love of pushing the limits (much to the consternation of Jamie's slampiece.)

Once they arrive, Betsy is changed, matured from a little girl into a leather-clad femme fatale. And in the car, not her brother and his chippie, but young Doug Ramsay, the New Mutants' Cypher, who is known to have something of a crush on the older Betsy.

Betsy arrives to the Body Shoppe, that mysterious institution where Spiral does her devilish work. There she sees Storm trying on a few outfits but is soon whisked away and given a forced makeover by Spiral and Mojo.

You could say she's being "Shanghai'ed"... (*audience boos*)

As Psylocke, now in the appearance of a lithe and acrobatic Asian woman, has something of an existential crisis -- we pull out to reveal that Betsy is in fact, being held captive in some kind of tube, where Matsuo and Mandarin watch on. She is effectively being brainwashed toward the Hand's goal.

Back in fantasy-land, Psylocke reflects on her brief stint as Captain Britain (way, way back in, oh what does it matter, you didn't read it.) Reflecting on that failure, she vows to be more ruthless, using the mento-intensifier ring to command Storm to hand over the ring that she possesses.

Psylocke, now clad in a cheeky ninja swimsuit, goes on a rampage of sorts, tearing through her old friends like Colossus, Dazzler, Havok and Rogue, all of whom are found in a variety of strange locales, and all possessing one of the power rings she seeks.

Unfortunately, the process is disrupted when she runs into her old foe from the most important comics ever published (Captain Britain), Slaymaster, who was responsible for blinding her in the first place.

This time, however, she is able to fight her way through Slaymaster, revealing The Mandarin under the surface. They fight but our newly-nearly-nude-ninja gets the upper hand. Mandarin may possess the rings, but Psylocke's telepathy can control the Mandarin himself.

 

Mojo and Spiral are proud of this development, and in reality the battle has caused some of the Hand's psychic sensitives to be killed. But the result is favorable.

Further Thoughts:

If it seems strange that Iron Man's famous villain is suddenly tangling with the X-Men, let's draw our attention to the cover where a corner box promotes "Acts of Vengeance," a concept crossover event that saw the various villains of the Marvel Universe mixed-and-matched with each other's usual foes. This also explains Magneto's decision to appear to break bad a few issues earlier, so as to account for his involvement in this affair. Because at the end of the day, these are all just action figures being smashed together and reverting to their original, most recognizable plastic shapes.

This particular issue takes the unusual form of mostly being an illusion or fantasy in Psylocke's mind as she takes on the "mission" to acquire the ten power rings, which when completed will represent the final phase of her conditioning as a ninja assassin. It's pretty bold and disorienting -- we aren't told exactly how we got here from the Siege Perilous business, nor how Spiral and Mojo fit into all of this, only that they make a handy explanation for why this white British lady is now a sexy Japanese assassin. In the long run, especially because of the way understanding of the ills of racial appropriation have evolved in the three decades since this comic, it's a little bit icky (the same goes for the way Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander are now visually Indigenous people) but at least there is a plot-relevant reason for it that ties into a scheme that is intentionally depicted as nefarious. (As for why it takes decades to be undone, well, you know how these things go. Most artists would rather draw a sexy Asian femme fatale than a haughty British heiress, then it becomes iconic and inertia takes over.) 

The deliberately disorienting approach is not at all unprecedented in these comics. It was only a year or so earlier that we saw very similar scenes play out with Madelyne Pryor, first as part of her grooming by the demons and then as part of her interrogation on Genosha. Using these highly symbolic sequences seems to be a favourite strategy of Chris Claremont, and it always does add some extra oomph to the issue by exploring the character's psyche and providing us with imaginative setpieces. This is a great examination of what makes Betsy tick and a marker of where she is headed as a character.

For all the cliches about Chris Claremont over-writing at times, in reality since explaining the meaning of all this would completely ruin it, he has a way of sitting back and assuming that the meaning of these events is immediately obvious to readers, giving them perhaps too much credit. If you are a casual reader flipping through this issue, you might be confused as to who any of these people are or what's going on and why. That isn't an argument that things should be dumbed down for anyone, only an acknowledgment of the sometimes "cold" (in the terminology of Mr. McLuhan) relationship people have with comics. Not being immediately brought into the party may make people feel like they are on the outside, but I've heard time and again that it often serves to whet peoples' appetite for the bigger story, and I can't disagree that it's true for me too. 

It all makes for, at the very least, an intriguing and unexpected new path for the X-Men comics, coming through this chaotic post-separation period.