Psylocke #7 // Review
There’s a monster haunting New Orleans. To her credit, the ninja from out-of-town is only KIND OF responsible for the monster being there in the first place. She’s not exactly completely innocent of the situation, but it’s not like she WANTED everything to go to hell in Psylocke #7. Writer Alyssa Wong continues a fun journey with a flawed hero in an issue brought to page and panel by the art team of Vincenzo Carratù and Moisés Hidalgo. Color comes to the page courtesy of Fer Sifuentes-Sujo. An inner journey becomes VERY external in another satisfying adventure with Psylocke.
There’s hell just outside Haven House in New Orleans. There’s a kid there who goes by the name Deathdream. He’s afflicted by something that he more or less had under control for the most part. He had it under control until Psylocke showed-up, things got complicated. She’s been suffering from horrifying visions. She’s there at Haven House to try to figure out to what degree these visions might actually be the manifestation of something real. (And since this IS the Marvel Universe, it’s important to err on the side of caution with such things.) Now Psylocke’s spectral tormentor has turned out to be quite real...a matter which becomes rather dangerous when it takes control of the kid who calls himself Deathdream.
Wong throws a couple of different super-powered elements into the narrative to explore some of Psylocke’s issues with the malevolent entity in question. She’s doing to have to face a seriously amplified threat in the very, very real world. The good news is that she’s not going to have to do so aloneas Wong teams-up with Rogue and Magik. None of the individual characters have quite the competency that they would normally have on their own, but it IS fun to see the three of them (all three of them have their own titles running right now) team-up together in a reasonably thoughtful, little crossover experiment.
Carratù and Hidalgo pound the action across the page with a sharp sense of style and flair. It all feels quite well-executed with respect to overall action, but the inner heart of the emotionality of the conflict never quite makes it to the page in any kind of a serious way. This is perfectly fine as the art team does a really impressive job with the action. Everything flows across the page quite well. Sifuentes-Soto’s color lends radiance and atmosphere to page and panel that work quite well throughout the issue.
Things continue to develop in the orbit of a hero who is just trying to get along/ She’s forced to deal with some pretty impressive stuff...Wong has been sharp about keeping Psylocke moving even as she’s dealing with overwhelming forces beyond comprehension. The challenge for Wong is going to lie in trying to get things to settle-down enough for Psylocke so that she can have a few moments to breathe before she launches herself back into the type of horrors she’s run into in the seventh issue.
