Warning! Spoilers for Excalibur #17 below.
Betsy Braddock has been many things - an X-Man, a hero, and even an assassin. It's that last one that's coming back to haunt her even as she struggles to adjust to her new role as Captain Britain. As an old familiar face tells her in the latest Excalibur, Betsy is still a killer - and has plenty left to atone for, despite her heroic exterior.
While Betsy Braddock first appeared in Captain Britain #8 in 1976, her character has endured a long, winding, and strange history which ultimately saw her switching minds with the assassin known as Kwannon. The convoluted and controversial story would ultimately see Braddock becoming an assassin of the ninja cult The Hand, under the name Lady Mandarin. Eventually, Psylocke would join the X-Men as one of its most recognizable members, but her dark and twisted past has come back to haunt her on numerous occasions - including most recently.
Excalibur #17, written by Tini Howard and illustrated by Marcus To, sees Betsy struggling to return home after being thrust into an alternate dimension following the immediate fallout of X of Swords. In this world, Betsy isn't just Captain Britain - she's also the Queen of England! As Betsy comes to make sense of everything, she soon finds herself facing an alternate version of Kwannon, who never suffered the body-swapping shenanigans from her own timeline. In order to return home, Betsy ultimately must confront Kwannon, whose body she used to commit several assassinations during her time with the Hand.
Upon taking her brother Brian Braddock's mantle as Captain Braddock, Betsy seems the furthest away she's ever been from her assassin past. Indeed, her world's Kwannon has resumed her place in her original body and currently leads the Hellions as Psylocke. While Betsy has led a new iteration of Excalibur as Captain Britain, the confrontation with the alternate-reality version of Kwannon proves her past is never that far away.
Despite these uncomfortable revelations, however, this might be for the best. In one possible future, Psylocke eventually becomes Magistrate Braddock, the leader of an intensely fascist regime that has literally run out of villains and criminals to kill - and taken to preemptively killing anyone who might commit a crime in the future. This horrible version of Betsy was so bad she fought alongside the Kang the Conqueror and was so bad that it prompted her present-day counterpart to attempt suicide to prevent this horrid future from coming to pass.
Ultimately, while Betsy maintains an uneasy relationship with her past, that's probably a good thing. As the current leader of Excalibur, Betsy has proven herself to be a capable choice for the mantle of Captain Britain, with years of experience under her belt. But just as much as any member of the team, Betsy Braddock also has a lot to atone for - and the future may suffer if she ever forgets it.