Mind games! The crew of the Lost Light are caught off guard when a dead friend appears out of the blue. But there’s no time for a happy reunion: someone else has found his way onto the ship—someone with the power to tear the crew apart.
Click the jump for a review of More Than Meets the Eye #48!
(Spoilers to follow. If you’d rather quit reading this review to go read issue 48 first, I promise I won’t mind.)
Surprisingly, this issue starts out very calmly. After the dramatic ending of issue 47 I’d expected a lot of yelling, angst, and possible death. But, in their own way, everyone behaves themselves. I admit, I’m a little disappointed.
Other than that, it was an interesting story. We get to hear a little more about Skids, and a lot more about Rung.
It boggles the mind that we met Skids way back in issue 2, and 46 issues later he still doesn’t know exactly who he is or what he experienced that was so traumatic it wiped his memory. After this issue we know he was on bomb detail in the war, defusing “anti-personal” mines. No, not anti-personnel: these mines are unfriendly because they’re the heads of people that’ve been permanently welded to explosives, and you’ll have to kill them to defuse them, and they know that. Trust James Roberts to come up with something that clever and that disturbing.
We know he was captured by Decepticons, and we know he’s inching his way forward in his memories thanks to his psychiatrist Rung, up until Rung’s former friend and coworker Froid drops by.
(Yes, the Froid/Freud connection was pretty obvious, but I missed the Rung/Jung connection until it was implied that Froid and Rung were at odds, and there was a mention of “Rungian philosophy.” I rolled my eyes. And laughed. I admit it. James Roberts, you clever, clever doofus.)
The story takes a darker turn at this point, because Froid is hiding something. He has his own reasons for looking Rung up, for wanting a peek at Rung’s patient records, and for assuming Rung will go along with it. None of it is good for Rung, and it’s even less good for Skids. (The rest of the ship is probably going to have a problem with it as well. Even Megatron. Especially Megatron. Holy cow, Megatron’s reaction when he realizes what’s up is going to be off the scale.)
So yes, the writing is dark, and funny, and subtle, and disturbing, all at once. And the art by Hayato Sakamoto is perfect, even more perfect than usual. Remember how I had a problem with the lack of noses in the last Sakamoto issue? (A tiny problem, mind you, but I still made comments.) In this issue everybody’s nose seems firmly in place.
I want to say for the record that I don’t care what level of noseness we have in these books, Sakamoto’s art is beautiful. I’d hate to think anyone thought I was prejudiced against noselessness. I’m open-minded and embrace all levels of nose-topography.
As long as it’s Sakamoto. Everybody else, I expect something Rung can rest his glasses on.
Description courtesy of IDW.