Psylocke continues her hunt for Apoth in Fallen Angels #2 from Bryan Edward Hill, Szymon Kudranski, and Frank D’Armata. We learn more of Psylocke’s past life as a Hand assassin, while in the present, the squad disagrees on the best way to proceed next.
Tony Thornley: Welcome back to Missing Lobsters! So before we dive in just a quick programming note. I’d like to welcome my new co-writer for this feature, Andrea Ayres!
Andrea Ayres: Cheers Tony! It is a pleasure to be here. I’m pretty excited to get the chance to work with you all. I appreciate the warm welcome!
TT: Glad to have you on the team! So let’s dive right in!
Chrysalis
TT: Hill is leaning back into the butterfly metaphor again, and I dig it. So we see Psylocke taking the lead with Laura and Cable. We get more into her past as she tries to connect with her younger teammates. But I really dig that she recognizes that she needs to grow as well!
AA: Yes! I agree with you about her recognizing she needs to grow. Whooo doggie, anytime I see a butterfly metaphor I have a rough time not having flashbacks to the 1999 song by the band Crazytown called “Butterfly.” Which I actually bring up because the butterfly metaphor sometimes makes me cringe, much like that song. There’s a history of the metaphor being used as really not a way to invoke a woman realizing her agency, but instead quite the reverse. Thinking of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly here, this idea of delicacy, fragility, and then steeping it in Orientalism. [Ed. note: Or, related to that, Weezer’s Pinkerton]
TT: In context here, that really makes sense! Up until her rebirth, Kwannon never did have agency- she had to kill, she had to take a backseat to Betsy, etc. But here in Krakoa she has agency for the first time. So she’s taking a new name, she’s discovering herself as a new individual, she’s working with others who have that same potential! It really gets highlighted well towards the end of the issue, in her conversation with Mister Sinister, which I just love.
AA: Here in #2, Hill acknowledges the popular butterfly trope but insists Psylocke sees it as something different. It’s not about turning into something beautiful, it’s about becoming anything at all. It seems all to touch on something else Psylocke mentions a few times in this issue and the previous one. It’s this idea of wanting to be something or someone else but not knowing exactly what that means. It’s that idea of inner turmoil and struggle. Hence Psylocke referring to herself as a worm later on in the issue.
TT: Good catch! And it’s not just Psylocke. Laura has been going through a period of transformation in her life, and this issue does a better job than last of showing that on Krakoa she feels like she’s gone backwards. I’m not a huge fan of “struggling with the animal within” trope for the Wolverines, but it works a little better here, partly because we see the lighter more balanced side of Laura alongside the angry girl. And then there’s Cable who’s still struggling to find his place.
AA: Such a good point about Laura and Cable. It feels like there’s a larger message perhaps fomenting here that there isn’t any one way to find your place, find who you are…maybe? Could be reading too much into this stuff, I never know!
TT: I don’t think you are at all! That’s a great read on it, especially with what we see out of Psylocke later in the issue.
AA: Thank you for your validation here.
Fear, Anger, & Transformation
AA: In the opening panels, Hill pens the sentence “By sacrifice, we rise. We want nothing. For we are nothing. And when we forget that…when we allow ourselves to desire…we fall.” This is all juxtaposed against Kudranski’s backdrop of violence, of a man being killed. I’ve thought a lot about this since reading it, about my own anger.
TT: How so?
AA: Do you ever feel like a particular character comes into your life at the exact right moment? That’s how I feel about Hill’s Psylocke. She’s processing her rage and anger but she’s not even sure if she can or even wants to let that go. The moment before a transformation, that delicate space before we become something else, that, to be, is the scariest place in the world.
TT: That makes absolute sense. I think that connects really well into Psylocke’s transformation across the course of this issue. Cable brings her a lead, an entire village slaughtered by creepy new killer drones while making Overclock. Psylocke initially dismisses it- she wants to go directly after Apoth, not “his works.” So naturally Cable ditches Psylocke, recruits Laura to go punch some creepy robots.
I have to point out here, are you disturbed by how little Apoth cares for human life? I mean this issue is the second time we’ve seen it killing kids, which is disturbing. [Ed. note: Remember how the original Fallen Angels had a lobster and a T-Rex and this one has many dead children.]
AA: YES. Thank you for pointing this out. It’s obviously meant to shock and signal to the reader just how bad Apoth is. No life is sacred, nothing is off limits. It also kind of recenters how we think about violence. There’s such a habituation of the constant visual imagery of violent imagery but somehow seeing violent acts perpetrated against children, reorients the senses and then the full impact of all the violence becomes that much more intense. Dare I say a system shock… okay I’m leaving. Too many cliches and puns are now entering my head… [Ed. note: Do go on!]
TT: That’s very true, and I have to say… I still don’t like it. I get that what it’s trying to do, but between the depiction of it, and what feels like mostly shock value… I’m having trouble digesting it. It makes Apoth more despicable for sure, regardless.
What If Joy Isn’t The Answer?
AA: I think if you’ve been steeped in a certain kind of feeling, okay I’ll stop being evasive. I think if you’ve experienced trauma the idea of joy is absolutely alien. It’s why the interaction between Dazzler and Psylocke stands out to me. When Dazzler says “There’s joy here. Embrace it.” Psylocke responds “Joy doesn’t make everyone happy.”
What seems a flippant remark as settled a bit inside the nestles of my stomach area because I feel that on a deep level. The idea of feeling joy, especially if you are (as the kids say) going through it, is almost a burden itself. How about I just work on feeling anything? Still, despite all of this Psylocke does the hard part by admitting she needs a friend. Vulnerability is hard, so this feels like a big moment.
TT: It really does, which makes her change of heart in joining Cable and Laura on their mission poignant. Even though Psylocke’s dialogue still feels a little stiff (which I’m starting to think is somewhat intentional by Hill to show not just her upbringing but also English is not her first language?), it shows a breakthrough for her. I loved her line about learning goodness from them- it’s an acknowledgement of the growth that Laura and Cable have gone through as of late, without bringing the story to a screeching halt. I just wish it came through better in how he’s writing the characters themselves.
Overall though? I thought this was a much stronger issue than the first. The character’s feel closer to themselves, and the action is solid. Some of the problems still exist though- the figure work is stiff in the art, the extreme close-ups are jarring [Ed. note: TEETH], and some of the dialogue is still off. But in the macro, it’s a stronger outing for both Hill and Kudranski. The colors though… I’m not a fan, and I think D’Armata can do stronger work.
AA: I couldn’t agree with you more on this. There’s a lack of depth to the facial expressions, I think that’s what I’m picking up on anyway. What I like about this issue is the promise of where it wants to take us. I think it has a long way to go towards getting us there, however. I think there. The dialogue sometimes feels a bit clunky to me, like the characters aren’t always responding to one another but rather to a moment in the storyline that needs progressing.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Though I know that wasn’t the point of her cameo, Dazzler would make for an interesting pairing with Psylocke
- “I am a worm, wrapped in silk, waiting for the morning I can fly.”
- Laura and Cable both got new stealth outfits for their mission, and I’m disappointed we couldn’t see them better.
- Krakoan closer: Cocoon
- Make sure you check out what our other fine folks had to say about X-Force and New Mutants #2.
Andrea Ayres writes about comics and culture. She loves research, coffee, and lifting weights.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
Andrea Ayres is a freelance writer and pop culture journalist.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
