Nothing good happens on islands like this.
Creative Staff:
Story: Andy Diggle
Art: Aaron Campbell
What They Say:
Weaver and Maggie home in on the source of their mysterious powers, but Deacon Styles and the shadowy Cadre are hot on their heels. The final battle begins!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The penultimate installment of Uncanny’s second season takes us exactly where we need to be, and unfortunately that’s the main problem with it. After some good unpredictable material early on where it was exploring its cast a bit and trying to make heads or tails of the situation, it’s now headed into the familiar territory where you can telegraph a good chunk of what’s to come. I’m expecting a twist or two along the way still, but there’s that sense that you could see too much of this coming. After the last installment gave us some good background material for Weaver that made him an interesting character and bringing Holly into the mix, events here are all about going after The Source.
With Holly now a part of the team, since she’s basically in a whole lot of trouble at minimum with Deacon, they’ve spent their time pulling all their assets together to get to the island off the Philipines to where Weaver’s father hid The Source. The touching upon why they don’t use a more straightforward approach is good as it reminds us of the limitations of their abilities and we get some of that with Maggie later, where whether she could regenerate if she gets a shot to the head. This group certainly has its own dynamic and adding Holly to it just reminds that they’re all only doing this as a means of survival for the most part now. But there’s also that curiosity about what The Source is, especially as Weaver’s father simply hid it rather than destroyed it. And he hid it in a curious place to be sure, one with an interesting locking mechanism trick that I really liked a lot in how it was played out.
Naturally, Deacon’s no idiot and he’s figured out how to track them all this time, biding his time in letting them do the hard work. That has him showing up at the obvious moment at the end, but before that there’s a pretty solid merc group that goes in after Weaver’s group, leaving Maggie to defend them since none of them are good in a firefight otherwise. What’s frustrating about this is that while we have the good moment of revealing what The Source is, which I’m guessing is a potential third season focus, we get the arrival of an older woman that’s leading the mercs and reveals herself to be Weaver’s mother. Yes, being listed as dead on paper opens up a lot of possibilities in the world, but after getting such solid detail on his father in the last issue, this just feels very forced in how it plays out. I’d totally be on board with a third season appearance, especially since the end here has he going from being forceful towards Weaver towards siding with him against Deacon.
In Summary:
The fifth issue of the series is generally a pretty solid one when you get down to it, but the predictable aspects and the use of Weaver’s mother just left me rolling my eyes a bit. Valid and often used story point, yes, but I had hoped for more from the book than to go this route. I wanted more with The Source itself and what that really means or even more of Maggie dealing with the mercs or almost anything else besides that reveal. Weaver’s scenes here are solid and I rather enjoyed the snark that Holly brought to certain sections, especially when it comes to The Source. It’s not a bad issue by any stretch, but it left me wishing it had been bolder and less predictable.a
Grade: B
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: August 12th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
