Eternity Girl #2 – Magdalene Visaggio, Writer; Sonny Liew, Artist; Chris Chuckry, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 8/10
Corrina: What Death Offers
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
Ray: The weirdest new title in the Young Animal stable continues to unfold in Eternity Girl #2, but there are some bumps in the road with this second issue. This is very much a title about emotion, troubled mental states, and body image issues, and it tries to blend those very real issues with some bizarre Kirby-esque action. Some parts work a lot better than others, but the tone and pace of this issue are all over the place. Caroline Sharp tries to be a lot of things over the issue, including human – at the start of the issue, after a prank on her former boss and another failed suicide attempt, she takes human form for a night out with her friend and therapist, attending a stand up comedy performance from a body-positivity activist. This segment was probably the most problematic in the issue – it’s essentially a multi-page monologue from a random character, and even Caroline gets the analogy fairly quickly and gets tired of it.
Caroline’s unraveling, and the collapse of her few remaining friendships in the human world, are tying into something much darker, and it starts to unfold with a segment bringing back her former arch-nemesis. This mysterious cosmic supervillain knows exactly what Caroline wants – to die – and offers her a way she could achieve it. It would just require killing a cosmic being that would cause all of reality to unravel and wipe out anything alive in any reality. And this is where Sonny Liew really gets to shine, channeling his inner Kirby and Allred for some spectacular segments that show how bizarre and engaging the DCU can be when it embraces its cosmic nature. However, the most chilling segment of the issue is probably Caroline’s confrontation with her former boss, at his home, setting into motion a devastating sequence of events that mark Caroline’s descent into villainy. It’s a complex series, and not everything lands,but when it does, it’s something great.
Corrina: My reactions to the Young Animal books have been all over the place and not at all in line (usually) with Ray’s views on them, which only shows how idiosyncratic the line is as a whole. But Eternity Girl interests me because it’s using all the comic book standards–superheroes, powers, villains, secret government organizations–as a cover for exploring depression and, particularly, how disconnected some people can become to the world if they do not look like what they should look like, according to everyone else.
The main question of this issue, under the Kirby-esque style world, is this: if Caroline is connected to the center of the world, and Caroline’s life is so full of pain and lack of human connection that she wants to die, then that means the universe/world/eternity may have to die as well. It brings up existential questions, such as how much of the world that surrounds us is really there or in our own head, and, especially, it brings home how difficult it can be for some people to live in reality.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
