Expanding upon the past.
Creative Staff:
Story: Zack Kaplan
Art: John J. Pearson
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
Ben Sharp and his friends build a new command center for their startup, replete with new coders and good intentions, but when their app goes viral and they achieve overnight success as the hottest technopreneurs in the Valley, they’ll find themselves swimming with sharks and facing the dangerous dilemma of just how unscrupulous they are willing to be for their vision.
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.
This issue is one that’s certainly interesting but is also one that will read better in full with the series. It’s one that deals with more of the past by filling in the blanks where so much of it would feel like a montage sequence in a film. Moving the gang through graduation and how they set up with a bunch of other graduates by offering them cheap summer jobs to build out the basics of their app without being involved in the signal, it’s some pretty heady stuff as you’d expect. There aren’t a lot of conflicts among the man group but there continue to be issues with how Ben struggles with the way it feels like Eitan is taking this in directions he’s not keen on. And he’s not convinced that Eitan isn’t using the signal to convince others to his side of things. There’s even a moment where we see the two together and Ben isn’t sure whether Eitan was just charming enough to convince him or if he somehow used the signal to bring him over to their side.
Everything changes with the launch of the app, however, and seeing it going viral within the first day and bringing in so many people to basically alter is fascinating to watch. When you expected ten thousand people after the first month but instead end up with a million or something, it’s crazy and infectious in how you treat it. The rise and fame is sudden and brisk, especially since people are claiming the app works while not realizing how, and that sets them on the path to something much bigger. But also from the big sharks in the water, which we know from before, that are looking to just outright acquire any threat or potential moneymaker on a larger scale. That’s interesting to watch play out but it lost me a bit in how they were trying to figure out how to control the situation in their favor through the signal, leading to the break-in and the violence that comes with it. It is, unfortunately, a reminder that this is a group made up solely of young men.
In Summary:
There’s a lot going on in this installment of Mindset but it has that extended montage feeling for a lot of it. That’s not a knock on it at all as Pearson does a great job with it in showing how to reveal this kind of material in an engaging way. But it’s very exposition heavy in how it unfolds and that can be a bit slow to some, especially as a single issue. I think it’ll read a lot better when read in full with the series and will even connect better since it takes us back to the beginning a bit. Kaplan’s script keeps things engaging and that energy rush you get from the way it reveals how the app launch goes is great. I’m really curious to see where it’ll go at this point and what statement it really is trying to impart by the end.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Vault Comics
Release Date: September 14th, 2022
MSRP: $3.99
