Daily Archives: 1 June 2012

It’s hard to tell where Brubaker’s going with the series at this point… besides the inevitable moped race.

He’s revealed some more about the big terrible event, but not exactly. He’s hinted there’s more to the story. At the same time, he’s finally established the girl enough I can remember her name–Anna (though I swear it was something else)–and he’s introduced yet another mystery from the past.

The mystery from the past moment is actually the best thing in this issue, just because Pleece and Campbell illustrate it like a teen comic “gee whiz” moment. That moment gives the issue some character, while the rest of it (Beezer and Anna going through a futuristic hospital) is sterile and boring.

Brubaker’s problem seems to be with maintaining his interest in his protagonist. The moped race preparation scenes are a lot more animated than anything else in his writing here.

Besides a little framing scene at the beginning of the issue, Brubaker manages to stick with Beezer (his protagonist) for the entire issue. Brubaker layers the narrative a lot with a flashback catching the reader up to the environment suit girl being out of her environment suit.

There’s a real lack of drama–she and Beezer meet another psychic or visionary or whatever they’re called (or aren’t called), but the scene’s short and somewhat pointless. Brubaker’s shifting his focus to the girl, which would be fine–he’s already established Deadenders shifts that focus–except she’s so poorly defined.

Maybe he’s got a better story in mind for her, but he’s holding it back way too much. There are a lot of good possibilities in the issue and he doesn’t explore any of them.

It’s sort of a bridging issue, sort of a treading water issue. Still, it’s fairly good stuff.