Pyslocke volume two is out (and I'm not sure how long it has been out for actually) and I jumped into it the moment I noticed. I enjoyed the first volume and found it quite engaging, though it appears the second volume just focused a little too much on the action and carrying over the story from the first volume a little too much. While I don't mind stories that do span into multiple volumes, this one wasn't all that interesting for one to be focused on a bit more extensively. The first volume focused more on Psylocke's personal trauma and how she was a mutant child thrown into a world of violence without a choice, trained to be a lethal weapon and introduced to a world of pain. A new drug is released that shows how people can take it and gain mutant powers for a significantly longer period of time than usual, things backfired. But at that same event where the elites were trying to thrive and sell products to each other, a darker story was revealed: the human trafficking of child mutants. With Psylocke's own history growing up as a lost child, it feels a lot more personal to her and she feels the need to intervene and save the children to get them out of that environment. I liked that aspect of the story and how it gave her justification to go the extra mile, originally living as a trained assassin but now with a shift in her personality. I do enjoy that side of the depth regarding her character so far. And that's certainly important for a comic that focuses specifically on the character rather than the larger universe of the X-Men.
This second volume lost me a bit more as it felt a bit more oriented around the violence side of things, being a volume that entirely focused on action. While I enjoy the action side of these comics, I felt that none of it particularly stood out all that much, and the lack of pacing made it a bit of a slog to get through. The art style felt like it had dropped off a little with some quality decrease. Odd shapes in the character designs, more blocky and constructed rather than unique and fun styles. It seemed like a volume that was rushes a bit more rather than aimed to be something more engaging to the reader. It was also evident in some of the colouring, just not looking as good as that first volume which kicked things off. Usually with good pacing these volumes have their moments that stand out, something that was a bit more memorable that the reader enjoys. That specific 'Oh cool!' moment that just wasn't felt. I think some of this was because the story was in constant motion throughout, and none of it really took a moment to breathe where it really should've. In this volume the story maintains the pursuit of saving the mutant children from the elites. But it takes another dive into a darker turn where there is an internal market in which these children are faced to fight each other in an arena as people gamble on them.
It's definitely a darker tone, and I do enjoy that aspect of things. But throughout the volume it just felt like it was missing a vital piece of giving us something to care for. We had already seen this aspect of the story in the previous volume so it wasn't anything that was actually new to us. More an extension of what was previously known. I would've preferred to have had Psylocke actually interact with people a bit more to give us some emotional connection to witness, something that had her reacting to these events, but we didn't really see that. Though we did see that more in the first volume with her disgust in how people would treat these children. She does speak of wanting to make the world a better place for mutants in this one, but it's quickly thrown out and the action continues shortly after. This lack of pacing due to the constant action was what made things feel a bit thin, each panel was Psylocke running around and prancing around in odd fighting positions but never really anything that seemed all that impressive in the art side of things. Little detail and little colouring that felt vibrant enough. It made the volume feel a bit more structured in that one panel follows the next and you read through it rapidly almost forgetting there even is an art to it that can be appreciated. It shouldn't be this way for a story about a specific character that does have the ability to slow down and tell us more about them.
Outside of these problems, the world building was also missing with the focus on an existing story we had already explored quite a bit beforehand. There's the chance to see more of Psylocke and how she interacts with the world, and to some degree we see a little bit of that in how she operates alone for the most part, and how the help from others is only necessary when it's really needed. I thought that little aspect of things was interesting, but not enough and was used more as a plot point more than anything else.
Over all a bit of a weak volume. I feel it was over before it really began, having read through it so quickly without much to care for within the story of the art. Panels that don't burst out and speak to us, a story that stretched on a bit too long. Hopefully the next volume picks up from here and moves on to something new.
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