The penultimate installment finally wakes Lupe up to reality.
Creative Staff:
Story: Dennis Hopeless
Art: Victor Ibanez
Colors: K.J. Diaz
Letterer: Simon Bowland
What They Say:
How much death and destruction can Lupe survive? The fallout from last month’s explosive cliffhanger spreads far and wide as our mysterious narrator steps into the light.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This series has been pretty engaging from the start with how Dennis Hopeless presented it but I was surprised how quickly we got into things and that it’s wrapping up just as quickly as it felt like it could go a lot longer based on the start. That said, what works the best with this book is that while it plays in familiar territory it’s not in a rush to get through things. It actually has some really solid pacing so that you can feel that end-of-the-world atmosphere to it where there’s a kind of stillness and decay rather than just constant action. We do get action, however, and Victor Ibanez delivers really well there with the creatures at hand but also the monster that is humanity. I love the look of the book with all of its details in this area but also just the decaying world aspect which features a lot of neat little things that Diaz is able to deliver really well with the color design.
With so much going on, having Lupe swiped up and away by the mysterious stranger the last time around was certainly interesting. We’ve known that she’s been watched for some time but there’s still a lot unknown about this guy and while he seems fairly sane you know he’s been pushed to the edge with what he’s seen. The book tells the tale mostly through his point of view as he has Lupe in his ship after she was knocked all over the place from the psybomb attack against the feeders and he’s desperately hoping that she’ll wake up. He can’t piece together until toward the end that she’s not controlled by the creatures or something that they’ve taken a shine to but their master, though that’s not really true either. He’s able to highlight some of what he’s seen along the way but his main realization is that she’s truly the key, just not in the way that he expected.
His mad dash to get to the water where the feeders don’t go highlights some of the events of the past, such as when the military dropped a nuke on them in Arizona which didn’t do any good, and we even see the way a number of billionaires came together to fund a way to fight it, resulting in basically a Gundam that was fairly ineffective. The little tidbits of the past are great but we also get inside Lupe’s mind as she struggles with the effects of the psybomb. She’s still a child in a lot of ways because of how she grew up and the time since things went to hell and she can’t grasp this mental hellscape that her mind is using to try and make her aware of reality. But we also get the human-form version of the Feeders in there as well that are making it clear that they’re bonded together and she’s just as responsible as they are, that they’re both prey doing what they need to do. It’s going to be a real make-or-break moment for her in if she’s able to process this information, especially with the mystery man saving her to try and find a way to end this chaos.
In Summary:
Heart Eyes continues to be a thoroughly engaging series that I could have seen easily being spread out to at least twice its length after it concludes in the next issue. I almost really want to see some standalone or side story material to explore more of Lupe in this world and the things she saw and the survivors out there. What we get here shows more of the aftermath of the bigger fight from before and how it went down and it’s intriguing as well. Lupe’s internal struggle is spread out a bit here but it delivers a really interesting experience and I’m excited to see how the team will bring it to a conclusion in the next issue.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Vault Comics
Release Date: December 7th, 2022
MSRP: $3.99