Cave Carson lost an entire year of his life fighting in the conflict known as the ‘Milk Wars.’ Now, he can get back to his regular life. Or, alternately, he could chuck it all and go cosmic! Your Major Spoilers review of Cave Carson Has An Interstellar Eye #1 awaits!

CAVE CARSON HAS AN INTERSTELLAR EYE #1

Writer: Jon Rivera
Artist: Michael Avon Oeming/Paul Maybury
Colorist: Nick Filardi
Letterer: Clem Robins
Editor: Molly Mahan
Publisher: Young Animal/DC Comics
Cover Price: $3.99

Previously in Cave Carson Has An Interstellar Eye: “After a year of multiverse-hopping and fighting in the Milk Wars, returning to a normal life of digging and cave-diving just isn’t the same for explorer Cave Carson. Sure, he’s got his podcast, family and that cybernetic eye, but reminiscing about times gone by isn’t the same as living. Luckily for Cave Carson and his daughter Chloe, they’re about to get sucked into an all-new adventure – literally – when they go spelunking in a black hole! But what’s caused this black hole to appears and what’s its connection to the intergalactic music sensation Star Adam?”

WEIRD AND CONCEPTUAL

This issue opens in a strange mansion, populated by service droids, all of whom are in a tizzy preparing for visitors. The visitors turn out to be Cave Carson, Chloe and Marc Bartow (or at least a dimensional counterpart thereof), all of whom have come to visit Star Adam, a giant rock star who may or may not have been human once and who, much to Chloe’s surprise is an old friend of her dad. There’s much discussion about whether Chloe is named after Star Adam’s dog (she is), a little discussion about conceptual food and the sudden admission by Star Adam that he’s about to die. Cave, Marc and Star get hopped up on something that’s probably opium, and only Chloe is in full consciousness to witness the rock god’s passing. This leads to a last page reveal of the biggest problem of all: Star Adam is collapsing like a star, creating a wormhole through space that’s sucking in their ship…

I REALLY LIKE OEMING’S ART

There’s a second story in this issue featuring the latest episode of Cave’s podcast, discussing what happened with the original Team Cave, which seems to be the first episode in a narrative bridging the gap between the Silver Age series (which is admittedly super-minor, and I know who the Green Team is) and this revamp. This issue is a success in terms of the art, as Oeming delivers fascinating visuals of what a giant rock star alien (?) man’s death should look like, and every page is really interesting to look at. Sadly, the story feels like it both starts and ends in mid-sentence, and I’m one of the people who has been reading Cave’s new series since the beginning. Rivera’s story is evocative and full of mood, but feels like it’s trying really hard to be weird and esoteric, without really articulating a solid reason for all the bizarro bits.

BOTTOM LINE: KINDA LACKS A NARRATIVE CENTER

I’m still interested in seeing where this is going, especially in finding out whether the weirdness is going to be centered on anything other than being strange and off-putting, leaving Cave Carson Has An Interstellar Eye #1 with a slightly confused but still above-average 3 out of 5 stars overall. I miss Wild Dog a little bit, but more than anything else, I wish there was a clearer story through-line in this issue…