In today's review of the Wolverine 50th Anniversary Wolverine and Psylocke two-pack, yo wondered whether Betsy's "Lady Mandarin" costume was originally going to have a full mask.
Despite that being a blind guess, he was 100% correct! Jim Lee's first design for the character, as revealed in 2000's X-Men Archives Sketchbook, sort of splits the difference between the armor we got and the swimsuit she'd become famous for:
But the revised version, dated June 22, 1989, definitely had a protective faceplate built in, in the form of a "Hand Assassin 'Deathmask'":
Obviously it changed again before the story was published, but by that point, it's likely Claremont had already moved on to later scripts and forgot having her face revealed to Logan was a plot point, leading to the disjointed scene in the comic.
It still doesn't really make sense, though. Maybe she has very distinctive ears?
(via)
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