Collapser #2 – Mikey Way, Shaun Simon, Writers; Ilias Kyriazis, Artist; Cris Peter, Colorist
Rating:
Ray – 7/10
Ray: The first issue of this Young Animal series treaded the line between being an odd indie-accented title and being a typical “average joe” superhero comic about a millennial who inherits cosmic powers. Collapser #2 doubles down on the first, throwing one surreal visual after another at us and leaving us puzzling over what’s real and what isn’t.
When we pick up, Liam has woken up with a black hole in his chest and finds himself teleporting around the world from one monument to another. This part is pretty funny, as he dismantles one monument after another – toppling Stonehenge! Accidentally flinging a tourist bus into the Great Pyramid of Giza! – and terrorizing everyone around him. He even randomly encounters the Jersey Devil and Loch Ness Monster along the way. But when he returns home, things don’t get more logical – they get less, as he starts hallucinating horrible aliens and demons all around him.
His long-suffering girlfriend, who he dumped all over last issue after things went south at his DJ gig, tries to calm him, but his hallucinations soon escalate to the point that he assaults a random man on the street and winds up committed to a mental asylum for a month.
The constant gaslighting Liam encounters over the issue can be hard to read, as no one even considers that something might have happened to him. Is this set in the DCU or not? If it is, this would seem to be a standard Tuesday. The overall tone of the series continues to be pretty bleak, with Liam sinking further into depression and losing one of his few friends at the old age home where he works. Then things take a ridiculous turn at the end of the issue as our villain shows up an the city goes to hell – and Liam gets an assist from an unlikely source. There’s a lot of quality work going on here, especially from the art team, but I’m not sure it’s coming together as a story yet.
Corrina: A short note: I’m so very tired of the “it’s not mental illness, it’s superpowers” plot. So very tired.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
