One of the best things about X-Men '97 is watching it quietly pick up threads the original series left dangling three decades ago. Season 2 just did it again, and this time it's a character the 90s show only ever teased us with.
Mild spoilers ahead for the season's second episode, animation fans!
Psylocke steps into the story in Season 2's second episode (the first three are streaming on Disney+ now), arriving as part of Cable's crew. Voicing her is Naoko Mori, the Welsh-Japanese actress you'll know as Toshiko Sato from Torchwood. There was no casting announcement and no press rollout. The reveal just plays out in the episode and its credits, which has quickly become this show's signature move.
Here's the part that makes this special for those of us who grew up on the original run. Psylocke's only appearance in X-Men: The Animated Series came in the Season 4 "Beyond Good and Evil" arc back in 1995, voiced by Tasha Simms, and then the show simply never used her again. Because X-Men '97 continues that exact continuity, Mori is the first actress to voice Psylocke in this universe in 31 years. That's one of the longest gaps between appearances any character in the franchise has ever had!
And the show is clearly going with the look everyone remembers: the purple-haired ninja with the glowing psychic knife, the Jim Lee design that ruled the comics and the toy aisles of the 90s. That design comes with one of the strangest backstories in Marvel history, a 1989 storyline that put British telepath Betsy Braddock's mind in the body of the assassin Kwannon. Today's comics have long since split the two women apart, with Betsy serving as Captain Britain while Kwannon carries the Psylocke name. Which version this series is giving us is a mystery the season gets to unravel, and honestly, that mystery is half the fun of a reveal like this one.
It's also worth noting the company she's keeping. This is the same season that slipped John de Lancie in as Rama-Tut with zero fanfare. Between that and Psylocke, X-Men '97 is treating its cast reveals the way the old Saturday-morning shows did: no hype cycle, just a new face showing up in the episode and trusting the fans to notice. And notice we did, within hours of the episodes hitting Disney+!
So who else deserves the quiet comeback treatment? The original series left plenty of one-episode wonders on the table, and I'd love to hear which ones you all want Season 3 to rescue. Drop your picks in the comments!
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