Kwannon is hot on the trail of a mutant trafficking ring, but a dangerous new villain is tracking her. Has her past come back to haunt her, or has her investigation made her new enemies? And will the help of her lover, John Greycrow, be enough to turn the tide? Psylocke #3 is written by Alyssa Wong, drawn by Vincenzo Carratu, colored by Fer Sifuentes-Sujo and lettered by Ariana Maher.
Behold, a book featuring a badass mutant with a past that involves them being made into a weapon, one who deals with mutant-related issues that require a more … violent touch, while their troubled or mysterious past bubbles to the surface to either guide them or affect the present in some way.
Which of the various X-Men related solos could I be talking about?
Trick question! That’s pretty much all of them right now, save Storm, which has a whole host of problems of its own.
On paper, there is something that should work about Kwannon/Psylocke doing that thing she does — former assassin who had her body stolen from her, died, came back and found her place on Krakoa. Having her fill a sort of Wolverine-esque role is not a huge stretch or leap.
Problem is, that’s the same role that Magik and two Wolverines (and often Deadpool and Cable) are currently filling.
Let’s start with how things look. Because if there is one thing that the current (and past) X-line has going for it, it’s that it looks pretty damn good. Something about the line really tends to bring out some of the best artists, or bring out the best in them.
Carratù gives us a really slick-looking series. I mean, just look at that spread with Psylocke fighting off the robot zombie animals. She’s flipping, kicking and slicing all over the page in grand fashion. It’s purposeful chaos, but really honed and organized, beautiful chaos. Kinetic energy is just dripping from the page. Plenty more pages are like this as the issue moves on.
All of the panel choices are frantic and quick in their layout, really keeping things moving (even as the plot slows to a crawl). Love the way we see Kwannon putting together the series of events during the attack on Greycrow.
A heavy darkness is part of the character, and Sifuentes-Sujo captures that with the colors. A lot of shadows, heavier tones and less flashy vibrant beats fill these pages, keeping the fantastical at the surface while taking the story down into the depths.
If only the depths of the story matched what the art is giving us.
Look, it’s fine. Compared to a lot of books out there, what Wong is doing here isn’t off-putting or wrong or bad in any fashion. It’s also nothing new or relatively creative in the long run. As noted above, been there done that with a lot of characters who fill this very specific but too well-employed character niche.
Over half this issue is dedicated to the Greycrow cliffhanger, and it’s sort of an “Oh … OK, yeah” conclusion. Then it spends the rest of the time dragging us back to Shinobi Shaw (already had enough of him) so he can exposition dump about some new villain. Naturally, it’s some ill, possibly mutated creepy dude who has taken a liking to Psylocke for … some reason? While engaging in creepy, death-related stuff including churning out robo zombie animals.
Oh, and the next issue blurb states he’s been watching her for years now.
Essentially, he’s an incel-like rich man taxidermist type who wants to capture or do whatever to a woman. Not bad in the sense of these guys exist all around and deserve to be the villains of stories, because they are. Yet, it just feels … unnecessary. It just adds to the overall confusion about what the point of this book is.
We kicked off with Psylocke being put into a forced vacation, which led to her rescuing mutant kids because she doesn’t do vacations when people are in need. Now it’s morphing into someone gunning for her for some reason. While she’s still doing all the X-Men related stuff over in X-Men without a whisper of working too hard or whatnot.
I know, shocker, this heavily confusing, overly stuffed line of books seemingly still has no real connection to one another. Who could have seen that one coming?
Anyway, there are things to like about this book and things to dislike, putting it still squarely in the middle camp of “fine, I suppose, if we really need to have it” among the X-line. With no real identity or clear purpose, how long this book lasts in this market that is only forgiving to a handful of “legacy” (aka mostly white male starring) books is unclear.
Kwannon deserves the spotlight and is an awesome character. So I hope she gets to keep having more stories focused on her as things move forward. Just give her space to be something more than Wolverine-lite.
X-traneous Thoughts
- We got ourselves a variation of the tropey “They’re standing right behind me, aren’t they?” That’s nice, I guess.
- Of course Beast has no answer to why people keep waltzing into mutant bases. It’s a tradition as old as time, or at least as old as these characters. Hell, even being on Krakoa only slightly lessened such things.
- Should have known Greycrow comes with a vibration function.
- When Shinobi Shaw is out here calling you creepy, that says a whole hell of a lot.
Buy Psylocke #3 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)
Scott Redmond
Scott Redmond is a freelance writer and educator fueled by coffee, sarcasm, his love for comic books and more "geeky" things than you can shake a lightsaber at. Probably seen around social media and remembered as "Oh yeah, that guy." An avid gamer, reader, photographer, amateur cook and solid human being.
