Psylocke makes her triumphant return from the dead in Uncanny X-Men #455, no doubt to the surprise of all those people who didn't even know she was dead because it happened in X-Treme X-Men.

In all fairness, supposedly Chris Claremont killed Psylocke off with a specific storyline in mind, only to have the rebirth vetoed once she was already dead.  That provides a much better justification than normal for bringing her back.  The downside is... well, it's Psylocke, and her history is hideously convoluted already.  I have a sinking feeling that it's about to get even worse. 

Then again, perhaps Claremont is simply planning a good solid whack of the reset button, which might not be such a bad idea.  He seems to have got rid of the Crimson Dawn stuff, for example - that face tattoo is gone.  On the other hand, she's still Asian, and given that her body was apparently autopsied - something that's hammered here - that presumably means we're on to yet a third body.

I'm in two minds about this story.  In the short term, it works pretty well.  There's a nicely constructed mystery about how Psylocke returned from the dead, and for that matter whether it's really her.  So far as it goes, that's fine.  In the long run, though, I've got to wonder whether an already-convoluted character is about to become even more cumbersome.

Meanwhile, Claremont continues to integrate X-23 into his supporting cast.  And he's got some promising ideas for her; he seems to be playing her as a sort of damaged-goods version of Wolverine.  She mirrors bits of his character, but it comes across nicely, as somebody who shares some of his inclinations and is understandably curious about this suspiciously similar guy downstairs, rather than as an outright copy of his personality.  She's finally starting to feel like a proper character.

Alan Davis returns on art for this arc, which is always worth a couple of extra points right there.  The first three pages have a lovely, off-kilter layout.  (Shame about Psylocke's costume, which I never liked, but then I guess we're rid of it now.)  Davis is the sort of artist who can sell virtually anything, and with this being one of Claremont's better recent scripts, the results are pretty good.

Rating: A-

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