X-Men #78
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeX-Men #78 delivers the dramatic conclusion of the 'Psi-War' crossover arc, and its most lasting narrative consequence is the permanent loss of Psylocke's active telepathy: to imprison the Shadow King within herself, Betsy Braddock must silence her own psychic powers indefinitely, fundamentally reshaping a character who had been defined by them for over a decade. The issue also deepens the Crimson Dawn subplot by granting Psylocke a new shadow-based psi-form, a transformation that would drive her story for years to come. As a crossover endpoint, the psionic shockwave generated in the arc rippled across multiple Marvel titles simultaneously, marking one of the more organically universe-wide X-Men stories of the late 1990s.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Written by Joe Kelly with pencils by Germán García, inks by Art Thibert, and colors by Liquid!, the issue was edited by Mark Powers under editor-in-chief Bob Harras. García served as a guest artist for the two-part 'Psi-War' story in place of the series' regular art team, giving the arc a visually distinct feel from surrounding issues. The issue was released on June 17, 1998 with an August 1998 cover date and carries a newsstand variant alongside the standard direct edition.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Story title: 'Psi-War: Storm Front, Part 2' — the concluding chapter of the two-part Psi-War arc spanning X-Men #77–78, with tie-ins in Cable #57, X-Man #41, Generation X #42, and Uncanny X-Men #358.
- Written by Joe Kelly; penciled by Germán García; inked by Art Thibert; colored by Liquid!; edited by Mark Powers (editor) and Bob Harras (editor-in-chief).
- Central plot: The Shadow King, having crippled every telepath on Earth via a psionic pulse, attempts to corrupt the newer X-Men members (Cecilia Reyes, Marrow, and Maggott) while Psylocke — resurrected by the Crimson Dawn with a new all-black psi-form — devises a plan to stop him.
- Major character development: Psylocke defeats the Shadow King by trapping him within herself on the psionic plane, but must permanently suppress her own telepathy to keep him imprisoned — effectively ending her career as an active telepath.
- The Crimson Dawn grants Psylocke the ability to command shadows on the Psionic Plane and move undetected, a power set that distinguishes this issue as the source of that short-lived but significant ability.
- Ainet Mwangi, Storm's Kenyan adoptive mother and village priestess of the Uzuri tribe, appears in this issue as a guest character; her character was created by Joe Kelly and Germán García, with her first appearance in X-Men #76 or #77 (sources vary — see Flagged).
- The issue exists in two editions: a direct edition and a newsstand variant.
- Material from this issue was partially reprinted in X-Men Gold #0 — Homecoming (May 2018); the full Psi-War arc (X-Men #70–79) was later collected in the trade paperback X-Men Gold Vol. 0: Homecoming.
Cast · 11 characters
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Reprinted in Gli Incredibili X-Men #108 (1999), X-Men: Gold #0 (2018)
Key issues in X-Men
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