The DC/Young Animal crossover rolls on. Can the Earth Elemental and the commander of the Mighty Mole bring it together to save their respective universes? Your Major Spoilers review of Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye/Swamp Thing Special #1 awaits!
CAVE CARSON HAS A CYBERNETIC EYE/SWAMP THING SPECIAL #1
Writer: Jon Rivera
Artist: Langdon Foss
Colorist: Nick Filardi
Letterer: Clem Robbins
Editor: Molly Mahan
Publisher: Young Animal/DC Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Previously in Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye/Swamp Thing: “MILK WARS” part four! Swamp Thing has detected a disturbance in the Green, and his hunt for it has led him to RetConn headquarters. There he finds Cave Carson and his crew struggling against being assimilated into RetConn’s diabolical narrative. Is it possible for Swampy and Cave to destroy the organization from the inside? Plus, find out how their efforts help Eternity Girl in the final installment of her backup story!”
“THE BRAND MAKETH THE MAN…”
After the various chapters of ‘Milk Wars’ thus far, I thought I was prepared for anything this issue had to offer…
Yeah, no, I wasn’t. We start with Cave Carson working in a cubicle farm, deep within the bowels of RetConn’s central offices. HIs stomach is feeling a bit off, so he’s not quite ready to deal with lunch break with his daughter Chloe and security chief Jack Wheeler (AKA Wild Dog). And then, he freaks out, grabbing and eating all the salad he can find, screaming out in a blind rage and eventually vomiting up… Swamp Thing? The plot is quickly unraveled, as Swamp Thing reveals that it was all part of the plan, that he had discovered RetConn’s office and its deleterious effects on the environment, conspiring to infiltrate. Wild Dog and Swamp Thing engage the drones of Retconn, while Cave and Chloe break into their control center to discover the truth of the plan: To take all the heroes of the DCU and revamp them into new forms that the company can control…
REEEALLY WEIRD
This story reveals that the great plan is to harness the powers of creativity to fuel the process of homogenization, and so it is discovered that the great corporate assets of the evil company are artists, poets and more, all kept in stasis. The backup tale, featuring the ongoing adventures of Eternity Girl (whose various iterational history has been the backup material for all the earlier chapters of the ‘Milk Wars’ crossover) is even weirder, featuring the main character rebelling against her story, speaking directly to us, the readers and stepping out of her comic strip into something/someplace else. (I expect we’ll see more of her soon enough.) The art in this issue is fascinating to look at, especially seeing the various leaves and vines and intricate greenery that make up Swamp Thing’s body from panel to panel. I am probably going to be haunted by the sight of a RetConn cubicle drone shattering to pieces with nothing inside but milk.
BOTTOM LINE: GREAT STUFF, IF YOU LIKE WEIRD!
I like the ideas on display in these pages and the assertion that constantly reworking and revamping the work of other artists leads to creative bankruptcy and homogeny, it’s a strange sort of thread to find in a shared universe that stretches back to 1938 especially given that the entire ‘Young Animal’ line is a reworking of existing DC characters. That cognitive dissonance aside, Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye/Swamp Thing Special #1 makes for a good read if you can stand the weird (though it at least seems to be weird in the service of a greater story) earning 3 out of 5 stars overall. I’ve been all-in on this crossover madness even when it hasn’t made any sense, and now that the pieces are coming together, I’m really keen on finding out where it’s been going…
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