Hannah covers horror, sci-fi, and games at Collider, where she writes news and features, reviews new releases, and interviews the people who make them. She’s helping build out Collider’s gaming coverage, with Pokémon as one of her specialties. If she isn’t writing about a monster, she’s probably watching one on a tape from her VHS collection.
Keeping track of an X-Men character’s identity can require considerably more work than remembering their real name. Costumes change, powers evolve, and a familiar codename can end up belonging to someone else entirely. For readers returning after a break, even recognizing a favorite mutant doesn’t guarantee they know what to call them anymore.
Betsy Braddock has a particularly complicated history on that front. Introduced in Captain Britain in 1976, she became a major part of the X-Men as Psylocke before later taking up the Captain Britain mantle herself. Her connection to fellow mutant Kwannon made the question of who was Psylocke especially difficult, with the two characters’ identities entangled for years. Nearly five decades after Betsy’s debut, Marvel is giving her another name.
Four villains, and four arguments the films were honest enough to actually let them make. Here is the one you lean towards, the part of it that holds up, and the exact point where it stops holding up.
You align with the one who was right about the problem and wrong about the solution. Killmonger is the most persuasive villain Marvel has produced because the film never pretends his anger came from nowhere.
You align with the protector, which is the most understandable and most dangerous position on this list. Namor is not chasing power or revenge, he is doing whatever keeps his people hidden, and he has been doing it for centuries.
You align with the patient one, the only man on this list with no powers, no army and no hurry. Zemo lost his family in Sokovia and then spent years working out that you do not fight the Avengers, you introduce them to each other's secrets.
You align with the one who decided the answer was arithmetic. Thanos is not angry and not grieving in any way he will admit to, he simply reached a conclusion and never once revisited it, which is precisely what makes him frightening.
Butterfly isn’t coming out of nowhere. Betsy’s telepathy has long appeared as a psychic butterfly around her face, so Marvel is turning one of her most recognizable visuals into her name. She’s already been Psylocke and Captain Britain, but this gives her a codename that doesn’t come with someone else attached to it. Kwannon keeps Psylocke, and Betsy gets to skip another round of sharing a superhero identity. That separation has been a long time coming. 2018’s Hunt for Wolverine: Mystery in Madripoor restored Betsy and Kwannon to their own bodies after decades of tangled storylines. Kwannon went on to become Psylocke, while Betsy took up Captain Britain during the Krakoa era. Earlier Maximum X-Men announcements had listed Betsy as Psylocke again, so Butterfly also clears up whether Marvel was about to reverse that decision.
Betsy joins Storm, Wolverine, Bishop, Colossus, Iceman, Firestar, and Justice after Chip Zdarsky’s Avengers: Armageddon leaves the Avengers disbanded. Someone still has to protect Earth, and Storm decides the X-Men are going to do it. An apparent invasion from the Negative Zone will put that decision to the test in the opening storyline, with Brevoort teasing that there’s more to the threat than the team initially realizes. The debut brings Betsy’s new codename into a series that asks the mutants to take over the Avengers’ workload. A name change might be the easiest part of her next assignment.
Maximum X-Men #1 releases December 2, 2026, for $4.99.
