Cave Carson has a Cybernetic Eye #11, by Jon Rivera (writer/story), Gerard Way (story), Michael Avon Oeming (artist), Nick Filardi (color artist), Clem Robins (letterer) - That Javier Pulido cover, I don't know what to make of it. It reminds me of those page of cutout paper dolls. Here's the happy nuclear family, with his daughter from another reality losing her mind in the background!Much exposition about how this other Cave Carson and Doc Magnus sent the eyes back through the crystals to find the universe the Whisperer came from before it was released, then have it bond with that universe's Cave so they could learn about Mazra, as some legend says she's the only one who can stop it. Blah, blah, fate of the universe, blah, blah, not really sorry about treating your life as an experiment, blah, blah, Chloe needs to break Magnus' nose. The Whisperer finds them, it attacks, Robo-Mazra protects them, briefly, before she's swatted into a deep abyss, but now Cave is convinced it's really her and he's going after her.
There are a few bits in here I enjoy. Wild Dog interrupting the Whisperer's speech by blowing up one of its lackeys, and Chloe's smirk as she remarks that she's sure he's smiling. Also an interesting layout on that page, with the bottom three panels laid out like in a triangle, with one big panel for the top two-thirds of the page. And the exploding head acts like one of those images with the sun shining at the peak of a pyramid. Don't know what the significance of that would be, but it was neat.
The Whisperer slows Mazra down by firing the EDX patriarch at her like a snot rocket. And it isn't one of those moments where the bad guy who thought he was a big deal realizes he's unimportant to the real big deal; the guy is totally on board with the idea. He's bought in to the point that acting as a booger bullet is fine, because he still thinks he's going to win at the end of this.
And there's a nice three-part set with Mazra within the issue. Initially Chloe is examining her and wondering if it's really her mother, come back to her, and just barely touches her cheek before Magnus rushes in to warn about uncertain absorbent aspects. There are yellow bubbles that no one notices that drift in from the previous page, through the panel of Chloe touching Mazra, and into the one where Magnus appears. And in that one, Mazra's drawn strictly as a shadow outline, her face and eyes obscured.
Later, Mazra tries comforting Chloe, and Cave advises her to just ignore Mazra. Mazra's design includes bright yellow lines that run down her face from her eyes, so in the final panel, with those highlighted, she appears to be crying.
Finally, the Whisperer tries to smash the ship they're on, and Mazra blocks the attack, and there's one a panel of her looking at Cave and silently smiling, followed by Cave gawking at muttering to himself, 'It can't be. . .' I am entirely a sucker for those sequences where one character smiles at the other, and the character being smiled at just knows this is really them by the smile.
Overall, it's an interesting sequence, watching Chloe want to hope this could really be her mother returned to her, but the others unintentionally encouraging her doubts. And Cave still doesn't want to even consider the possibility it could really be her. And really, it can't be if it's based strictly off his perceptions and observations, how much would this version of Mazra know of what the original thought and felt? Still, Cave wasn't even willing to risk hoping, or perhaps didn't want to. Was content to wallow in his grief. And this Mazra believes she is the real deal, whether it's true or not. To see have to come to grips with all this, her family hurting and have them reject her, and still be willing and able to step up and defend them, was a well-executed.
Yeah, there were some parts of this I liked a lot, and some other bits I didn't care about as much.
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