Ben realizes the danger of Mindset – and that he was zapped with the signal before the night he thought he discovered it. Who did it, and who is really in control? Find out in Mindset #6 from Vault Comics!
MINDSET #6
Writer: Zack Kaplan
Artist: John Pearson
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Editor: Adrian Wassel
Publisher: Vault Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: January 11, 2023
Previously in Mindset: Ben realizes that he is being controlled by his own app. It frees you from technology – but you keep returning to it. He starts to doubt his partners. Who is responsible for this? He and Atlanta go to the party and confront them. They tell him this was the plan all along. Ben decides to shut everything down. Winfield hits him and decides to oust Ben from the company. Then Winfield meets his death and Ben is arrested. Atlanta uses the app to free him. They lock their phones away to free themselves of the app and decide it must be Eitan. They kidnap Josiah to find a way to trace the signal, which leads them back to Stanford.
BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND BEFORE
Mindset #6 opens as Ben realizes that the first time he used the signal on himself was not the night of all the grad parties. It was six weeks earlier, when he had a nervous breakdown and missed several classes and labs. And if he did not remember that, when was he in control and when was it the signal? This is like watching a chain of dominos fall and later realizing the cascade started in a completely different place.
He believes he figured out that it worked, but he also realized he was not the type of person to dare to do something with it. That person was Eitan – but was he controlling Eitan, or was Eitan controlling him? Did he ever have control? The only thing he is certain of is that he did not want Winfield or Kushal dead, and he did not want Atlanta caught up in it.
They shut down the app, but Mindset security shows up, taking Josiah to safety and putting a zip tie on Ben. They are driven away. In the car, Ben still thinks he can fix things. Atlanta, who has been through something similar in her own life, tries to ground him and asks him what he really wants in life. And that is the question that plagues a lot of people.
They are taken to Eitan. Josiah tells Ben that he could shut down his own server, but why would he let them shut down Mindset’s server? Eitan asks what server he’s talking about. He did not know about the server at Stanford. Ben still wants to shut everything down. Eitan insists that no one was controlling him, but soon it becomes apparent that they were both controlling each other. Eitan offers to put him back into the loop. Ben has a phone and offers to free Eitan from Mindset. Eitan wonders why security did not search them. Ben claims he zapped them. Josiah pulls out his own phone to put a stop to this, and then the shots ring out and Josiah is killed.
It all comes down to Ben and Eitan. Ben apologizes for using Eitan. Eitan insists he had not been used. He still wants Mindset, and Ben is the only thing that stands in his way. Then Atlanta zaps him with the signal. They send him away. But what does Ben really want, and what does Atlanta want? Let me just say that I really like the ending. It works with the story and is well in flavor for it.
WHAT IF YOUR THOUGHTS ARE NOT YOUR OWN?
Mindset #6 is frankly surreal and the art captures this feeling. Panels are used traditionally, to showcase characters and move the story along, but they are also used to provoke a feeling. Right from the start, we see a page with a warped and fractured view of Ben’s face while he is realizing that the start of this was long before he thought it was. It looks for all the world like a visual rendition of having to completely revise one’s understanding. And there are further examples throughout. The story is high-concept and only the art can concisely convey this information.
There is another sequence that I love. When Ben comes face to face with Eitan and apologizes for controlling him while Eitan denies that he is being controlled, there is the moment when Eitan realizes how subtle the control was. There is a series of vertical panels alternating parts of Ben’s face with part’s of Eitan’s face. The dialogue alternates between them, but it is as though they are speaking the same thought. It is both strong and chilling.
BOTTOM LINE: IS MINDSET TOO BROKEN TO FIX?
Mindset #6 is a terrific science fiction tale, creepier because it hits so close to home. The plotting is deviously careful and while it has a solid ending, there is just enough disquiet that it never completely loses its disquieting tone. I think this will be a story worth a couple re-reads.
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Mindset #6
Mindset reaches its disquieting and unexpected conclusion!
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Writing10
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Art10
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Coloring10
By day, she’s a mild-mannered bureaucrat and Ms. Know-It-All. By night, she’s a dance teacher and RPG player (although admittedly not on the same nights). On the weekends, she may be found judging Magic, playing Guild Wars 2 (badly), or following other creative pursuits. Holy Lack of Copious Free Time, Batman! While she’s always wished she had teleportation as her superpower, she suspects that super-speed would be much more practical because then she’d have time to finish up those steampunk costumes she’s also working on.