On Thursday at San Diego Comic-Con 2026, Marvel Comics announced a new X-Men ongoing debuting in 2027: Maximum X-Men, written by Christopher Yost and illustrated by Tony S. Daniel. Eagle-eyed readers were quick to spot an important character note: Betsy Braddock, who’s taken on both the monikers of Psylocke and Captain Britain, joins the team Storm creates under the former.
Per the synopsis for Maximum X-Men, which follows in the wake of the current Avengers: Armageddon event, after Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are wiped off the map, it’s up to Marvel’s Merry Mutants to defend the 616. Storm puts together a team consisting of Wolverine, Colossus, Bishop, Iceman, Psylocke, Firestar, and Justice—and Daniel’s cover art for issue #1 clearly shows Betsy-as-Psylocke.
This marks another twist in Betsy’s long, complicated history in the Marvel Universe. Rather than explain every single detail, here’s a quick TL;DR:
After 25 years of publication history spent in Kwannon’s body due to a psychic link that caused them to swap (which was… frankly, an ugly mess, considering Betsy is white and Kwannon is Japanese), Kwannon died and was resurrected in the 2018 storyline “Hunt for Wolverine,” allowing her to recover her original memories and become the new Psylocke.
After Kwannon took on the Psylocke moniker and Betsy was also seemingly killed by Sapphire Styx and recovered her original body, she went back to being Captain Britain, a title she had briefly held after her twin brother, Brian, wielded it during her time as a secret agent for S.T.R.I.K.E. Psi Division. Under the Captain Britain name, Betsy worked with Apocalypse in the Otherworld-Krakoa-UK mutant group Excalibur.
Now, Betsy is once again taking on the role of Psylocke, despite Kwannon being part of the X-Men team under that name as recently as 2024. There’s no mention of the swap in PR material for Maximum X-Men (yet), but in case Daniel’s cover art isn’t clear enough, Marvel confirmed Betsy-as-Psylocke in an email to The Beat.
Given the shakeups happening in Avengers: Armageddon, it seems like anything is possible, but if you have theories, we’d love to hear them. Sound off in the comments about Betsy’s return to the X-Men and Kwannon’s apparent exit (or, at the very least, sidelining?).
Stay tuned to The Beat for more news from SDCC ’26.
