Just when things start to come together.
Creative Staff:
Story: Zack Kaplan
Art: John J. Pearson
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
When Ben Sharp fails to stop his partners, his investor is killed, Ben is incarcerated for murder, and Mindset is left to continue its global domination, tearing thread after thread from the fabric of society. For Ben to right his wrongs and stop his out-of-control creation, he’ll have to come face to face with his darkest secret. Can he change his mindset in time?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Delving into any Zack Kaplan work has me in that weird space of being really keen to see what they have in store but also kind of worried because it’ll delve into some areas that scratch the parts of my mind I try to avoid. Kaplan continues to have an interesting work here that delves into a lot of modern problems but with a fun twist of mind control of sorts. With this project, he’s paired up with John J. Pearson for the artwork and color design and that delivers a really interesting look. Since this is very much a dialogue-driven piece here, especially in the first issue, without much in the way of action, Pearson is able to make it engaging with the layouts and designs of the characters so that you’re going with the flow of the narrative and dialogue as it unfolds. It definitely delivers a really good experience.
As the series moves further on there are plenty of convoluted moments and I’ll admit that I’m not able to keep up on every twist at this point because there is a bit of density to the material here, which is a plus. What works with this issue in particular is that it’s kept small, mostly to just Ben and Hannah, as they struggle with what they’ve learned. With it cycling around to Ben’s confrontation with Peter at the party that resulted in Peter’s death, we get more of what happened before there with Ben and Hannah now understanding how they’ve been controlled and giving him the ability to make a really direct confrontation. We know it goes bad with him running away after Peter’s death and Ben being arrested, but we now see how Hannah manages to use the system to get him out. But not without Ben having to deal with his mother visiting him in jail and utterly shaming him.
Watching how Ben and Hannah work to free themselves from the loop and then for him to discover that it was Eitan that killed Peter shows just how far back this goes, making Peter realize that it was almost the beginning that Eitan changed everything – and has him questioning everything. It’s well written in exploring this and in finding out more with where the original signal is coming from that is manipulating the key players. Each new reveal adds more and more detail to it and the scale of events, but I will say that just based on so many stories working this kind of angle before that the bigger reveal at the very end wasn’t a surprise. It fits and tracks and has me wondering how it’ll play out, but the real big bad (so far) isn’t a surprising one. But it ratchets up the tension really well as we head into the next issue.
In Summary:
The series has been building toward this reveal point for a while and the clues have definitely been there but that doesn’t detract from it at all. Kaplan and Pearson have put together a strong installment with this issue as it gives us a lot of good character stuff, expands on Hannah well, and digs into more of what drives Ben throughout. It looks fantastic with a great sense of style and layout to it for this kind of story and the lettering is just top-notch with the way so much has to be conveyed with particular feeling. Really easy to recommend this for folks that enjoy this particular kind of story and style.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Vault Comics
Release Date: November 23rd, 2022
MSRP: $3.99
