Butterfly Blade

A reader over on Like a Butterfly made a couple great comments. Without posting the conversation, I'll just post some of his sayings:

"I think all the retconning is annoying & unfortunate, because it stems from Scott Lobdell (or was it Fabian Nicieza?) obviously not reading the book before taking over as writer of adjectiveless X-Men. He just assumed that Psylocke's changes were never explained by Claremont and wrote an entirely elaborate story of body swapping and created a superfluous and redundant character in Revanche! Claremont clearly expressed in his run that the Hand used magic and medicine to alter Psylocke and it was implied that Spiral may've been involved. (Although Spiral's presence during the brainwashing could have been Betts' subconscious juxtaposing her current predicament with the prior manipulations of Spiral and Mojo... sure it would've been addressed at some point had Claremont not left). Even after the change Claremont showed her psychologically shutting down and becoming introverted to deal with it, followed by her embracing her "action junkie" cravings. I think he would've eventually done some stuff along the lines of what Yost has done given the chance.

It's just bad writing, because it shows that the writers didn't do their research (simple reading) and completely changed the personality and backstory of an interesting character for no real good reason."

& another:

"Many of the issues directly following "Acts of Vengeance" show her readjusting to all the changes, including those directly before and after the "X-Tinction Agenda," the return of Prof X. when Lila Cheney takes them into Sh'iar space. Even the first three issues of adjectiveless X-Men. Claremont was writing her as trying to reconcile the fact she got what she wished at such great personal cost. To be a warrior, yet she was literally brainwashed and changed beyond skin deep. Be careful what one wishes for. Tricky Siege Perilous! It would've been cool to see how he'd have reconciled the character if Marvel had allowed him to bring her back in her true form. I think he would've kept her martial arts skills and telekinesis... along with the telepathy. It still seems kind of asinine that he was forced to have Jamie bring her back Asian. You'd think her reality-warping brother would've brought her back as the Elizabeth he knew her as for so many years."

Dead-on!!