A convoluted but intriguing start.
Creative Staff:
Story: Gerard Way, Jon Rivera
Art: Michael Avon Oeming
Colors: Nick Filardi
Letterer: Clem Robins
What They Say:
Cave Carson has done it all: survived countless adventures below the Earth’s surface, met the love of his life, and gotten a cybernetic eye…somehow. After he and his wife, Eileen, sent their only daughter Chloe off to college, Cave was ready to become just another mundane member of the surface world. That is, until Eileen got sick. Newly widowed, Cave tries to piece his life back together when a knock on the door of his secret underground lab pulls him back into a past that he and Eileen thought they had left buried deep within the Earth.
Adding to his troubles, Cave must determine if his recent hallucinations and visions are the work of his mind or his mysterious cybernetic eye. (Spoiler: It’s the eye.)
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As I continue to experiment with the first issue launches of the new Young Animal line of books from DC Comics, Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye was definitely high on the interest list for me. It’s been ages since I actually read any Cave Carson material and I suspect that the character has been largely absent for years for a range of reasons. It’s the ideal property, much like the relaunch of Challengers of the Unknown years ago, to dig into and try and do something new with. It fits perfectly with Shade and Doom Patrol and under the stewardship of Gerard Way with writer Jon Rivera alongside some fantastic work by Michael Avon Oeming, there’s a whole lot to like here – if you’re willing to put in the effort for it.
The premise for the series is certainly solid as it presents enough background for how this all operates, with Cave Carson having created and operated a group that dealt with underground exploration and threats for quite some time, turning them into celebrities, until the eyes of the world turned toward the sky due to superheroes and alien invasions and all that jazz. Cave has kind of regressed to some degree, focusing on smaller things, and just living his life with his family. All that turned dark with the recent death of his wife, Eileen, and that’s created a new distance with his daughter Chloe, who wasn’t as enamored with the past as he and others thought she was. There’s an amusing moment where she talks to her boyfriend about that period, since he’s fascinated by it, and she reveals just how much of it was staged. She’s simply done with it and is trying to do her best to make sure her dad is doing okay and attempting to live a little and reconnect with him after the tragedy.
A lot of what we get here is very foundational as it shows the company,the modern version of the Mighty Mole, how the company itself operates these days, and Cave’s distant relationship with it. Way and Rivera take a slow approach to it, filling in lots of details about everything as Cave gets the tour for the reader, but through it all we see how he’s having hallucinations through his cybernetic eye – a mystery device in itself – that brings visions of Eileen and more to the forefront. Cave is definitely having something bigger happen here but it’s wrapped up in the emotional range of a many going through grief and looking for something to latch onto. How much is real, and even if it is real, what does it really mean? The book provides for some great connections along the way, including some time with Doctor Morrow and a nod to the Metal Men, but it’s when a Muldroogan from down below arrives that we start to get the sense of a larger danger coming. It’s ill-defined as it should be at this point, but watching as Cave latches onto this is engaging.
In Summary:
There’s a lot of “lost” history to the Cave Carson character and I figure those more engaged with it might get more out of the book and its new placement in comics continuity. Coming into it without remembering much overall, it’s an intriguing book that lays down a lot and asks a lot of questions while not giving any answers, which is the right approach. I’m wholly interested in what’s going on here and can’t wait to sink my teeth into a few books in a row because it’s that kind of series that requires a layered reading. It’s most definitely worth it from month to month just for the Michael Avon Oeming’s artwork, however, as there are some fantastically blended panel layouts here, great character designs that step away from the norm in the right way, and just a lush and smooth sense of storytelling through it all with the details and designs that it’s almost like a masterclass lesson in how to lay out a book.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: DC Comics/Young Animal via ComiXology
Release Date: October 19th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
