We're Off to See Muldroogans
Written By:
Gerard Way & Jon Rivera
Art By:
Michael Avon Oeming
Colors By:
Nick Filardi
Letters By:
Clem Robins
Backup By:
Tom Scioli
Cover By:
Michael Avon Oeming and Nick Filardi
Cover Price:
$3.99
On Sale Date: December 21, 2016
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE
BOTTOM**
For a comic book titled Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye, there isn’t much happening with
the cybernetic eye. Don’t get me wrong, it figures into things often enough,
but you’d expect it to be the crux of the story instead of just an incidental
fact of life. Cave Carson has a cybernetic eye, Wild Dog has a hockey mask, and
Chloe has an attitude. I have been enjoying this series more with each issue—will
that trend continue to the third?? Read on and find out!
Explain
It!
This story picks up right from the last issue, with
Wild Dog and Cave Carson making off in the Mighty Mole, Cave’s daughter Chloe
following alongside in a sensible sedan, all of them pursued by a gigantic
green fungus monster borne of the corpses of some finger men. After some
coaxing and several panels of pants-shitting terror, Chloe jumps into the Mole
and Cave turns it to burrow underground—but the fungus creature follows! The Mighty
Mole is some mining machine, I tell you what. It bores tunnels with a laser,
apparently, so rapidly so as to support a winding, high speed chase through
dense earth. Our trio comes to a cave, where they face-off with the fungus
monster, gross insect thing-to-Mighty Mole, when Cave notes that this cavern
has high deposits of Uvinium, a mineral that makes worms grow large. Just then,
a giant worm pops out of the ground and distracts the fungus monster (and,
indeed, rips it in two) so Team Carson plus Wild Dog can escape.
Seems like Cave’s sneaky break from his former
employers, EBX Mining, did not go undetected. Small wonder, since it did
involve the theft of the Mighty Mole by way of blasting a hole straight through
the front of the building. This has resulted in a late-night phone call from
EBX CEO to Johnny Blake, and it looks like he’s going to have to take out the
trash. Or delegate said trash-taking to an underling, poising him as the fall
guy should things go awry. Actually, it turns out he’s going to lead the
mission to retrieve the Mighty Mole and kidnap Chloe, whose royal lineage they
need to access the underground kingdom of Muldroog. Keep up, folks, don’t let
me catch you nappin’! As they gear up what looks to be an even slicker Mighty
Mole, Johnny notes to his scientist colleague Paul that there seems to be an
awful lot of weapons being loaded onto the craft, which is pretty insane if a
gung-ho guy like this is saying it. They must be loading Gatling grenade guns
and shotguns that shoot butcher knives if it gives Johnny Blake pause.
Back underground, Cave and company have uncovered one
of his caches, and they’re have some R n’ R. Chloe confronts her dad angrily
for not being up front about her heritage, but what was he going to say?
“You’re the heiress to a vast underworld kingdom of untold riches, and oh yeah
finish your beets.” After Cave hallucinates his dead wife and fake hugs her
under a waterfall, he makes nice with his daughter and then everyone sets out
to visit Muldroog since that’s obviously where the apex of this story will
happen. On the way, they note many dead Muldroogans littering the grounds
outside the city, and as they get close to Muldroog’s walls, Cave can see—it’s
been sacked!
The backups by Tom Scioli are weird as usual. I
didn’t really understand the Wonder Twins one, again, though it does look like
there’s a narrative between issues happening here. There was also this
curse-filled re-telling of Green Arrow’s origin, using Xeen Arrow, a Silver Age
character that was like the “Green Arrow of Another World!” or something. The
surreal back-ups notwithstanding, I did enjoy this issue quite a lot, and found
it quite action-packed for a story that began with what looked like an old fart
at the end of his rope. In terms of advancing the story, there’s not a ton
here, but there’s a lot of characterization that is desperately needed to fill
in the blanks for the reader. This is a great read, and you don’t even need to
be a weirdo to enjoy it. But it helps!
Bits and Pieces:
In order to get to the bottom of this subterranean mystery, Cave Carson and company...will have to go deeper! The plot thickens a bit, but the characterization thickens more and the story is well served for it. This is an action-heavy book with a strange sensibility that probably has a broader appeal than I give it credit for. So prove me wrong! Check out this comic book, love it, and then tell me where to stick it!
8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment