Psylocke #4 //Review
Kwannon is breaking-into a facility. It’s okay: she’s been invited. But it’s not okay: she’s been invited by a deranged man of great wealth know as Ty Haniver. Kwannon’s IT back-up knows that there’s only once place that isn’t secure in Haniver’s compound. He knows that she’s entering a trap. So does she, but she doesn’t exactly have a choice in Psylocke #4. Writer Alyssa Wong brings Kwannon into contact with a dangerous figure in an issue that is conjured into the visual by artist Moisés Hidalgo and colorist Fer Sifuentes-Sujo. It’s a simple infiltration adventure, but Wong and company keep it interesting throughout.
Haniver is a bit of a strange one. There are a lot of people twisted enough to consider themselves supervillains in the Marvel Universe, but there aren’t many who would consider themselves to be taxonomists. That’s a bit of a strange approach to villainy...but Haniver IS a collector and he’s going to try to bring a certain heroic ninja into his collection by the end of the issue. Psylocke has been trained by the best at infiltration. She’s been trained on precisely how to enter a trap and make it out alive. Haniver may have met his match.
Wong moves through some pretty. familiar territory in an issue that has Kwannon moving into the inner-sanctum of a supervillain for...pretty much the entire run of the issue. There might be an isolated flashback to training, but the entirety of the issue pretty much focusses exclusively on the action and tension that builds as Psylocke moves through the peculiar collection of mutations that Haniver wants her to see before he confronts her. It’s a pretty clean and lean narrative that slices through from cover to cover as everything moves moment by moment along the line from beginning to end.
Hidalgo has a strong sense of dramatic perspective the shoots around the page...aided as it is by the colors of Sifuentes-Sujo. Theres a deeply atmospheric feel to the infiltration, which is precisely what one would want with an issue-length operation of this sort. The problem is that it doesn’t feel quite as much of an entry into the psyche of the villain. Wong really plays-up the idea that the gentleman in question is some kind of deranged millionaire, but there isn’t as much of an unsettling feeling as Wong seems to want to develop.
Though it may not play into the unsettling aspects of Haniver as it could, the fourth issue of Psylocke definitely has a firm grasp of what makes for an interesting story with this particular type of hero. Eliminate all of the peripheral stuff and just focus-in on the hero in action and see what happens. It’s pretty remarkable stuff once it gets going. If the series could just focus on framing the action with a bit more of an amplification of the horror, it could really turn into something remarkable. Wong’s doing a great job, though.
