Generational warfare via app.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mathew Klickstein
Art: Evgeniy Bornyakov
Colors: Lauren Affe
Letterer: Simon Bowland
What They Say:
Investigative reporter Lyla Wilton discovers the awful truth as to why the children on the island she’s been assigned to write about have brought her there. Will she help them with their devious plot…and does she even have a choice?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
You Are Obsolete has been a curious series as it’s played around the edges in some ways, not really revealing itself while also putting it all out there. Matthew Klickstein set things well with this remote island where the children can do what they want but the exact what of what they’re doing is still something of a mystery. But the buildup through the narration, especially in this installment, really does build things to a height well. Evgeniy Bornyakov continues to be an ideal artist in bringing this to life as the children are all appropriately creepy, especially with the hues that Lauren Affe brings in through the color design, but his take on Lyla and other adults works that forced expression well while Lyla’s own fall continues and she works through even more things.
A lot of this book is done by narration, or more a confession from Lyla that she’s writing as she sees more and more of what’s actually going on here in Muhu. Martina has made things more clear as they include her in more of their conversion kind of situations that go on to push people into the docile happy place that they need. The whole death after forty thing, amusingly enough, is arbitrary because Martina says it just seems like from their point of view that it’s when adults seem the most boring. Little do they know that’s when real living begins, which just amuses me all the more. But the more that Lyla sees the more it wears her down and even alcohol and drugs aren’t helping to dilute events as much as she needs. The pressure is building and she’s close to snapping, if not for Kadi and his presence being something of an outlet.
But even that starts to fall to the side here as she learns more and more, such as the alpha and beta testing view of what’s going on with adults, and she sees how someone like Kadi has adapted into just accepting this as reality as they have no real recourse. It’s better to live than to live in fear or somesuch. Lyla really struggles with that, especially as she grows to understand what her role here with the children is really all about. The idea that she’ll be the one to field test this for them through her writing and the release of the app that the children have written is terrifying. So much control and choice taken out of people’s hands by an app only kids can use, as it only recognizes their facial structure, that emits a noise that only those over forty can hear, which will end their lives. It’s the ultimate disruption that’s being plotted.
In Summary:
As more and more of this comes together it comes across as a really bleak area that in some ways you know and feel has already been accomplished on some level in reality. There’s a lot to lot in some of the comparisons made to the app and that the developers would have gone this distance if they could have. The series is leaving me uncertain as to whether it can pivot away to something resembling a win for the outside world but I’m definitely along for the ride, especially with as haunting as Evgeniy Bornyakov makes the whole thing look.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: November 20th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
