It’s one thing to wear your influences on your sleeve, another to just flat out do your influences over again with your own characters. Reading this issue felt like I was reading a “mix-tape” of scenes from The Prisoner, The Count of Monte Cristo and V for Vendetta mixed in with ye olde ultra-violence from Clockwork Orange. At no time did this issue rise above referencing other works, it just plodded through them with some vague characterizations combined with blood. While I enjoyed the cute little inferences in the last two issues, this one just had me screaming “Enough Already!” But aside from seeming like late-night repeats, the most perplexing thing was having characterization explained to the reader. Instead of characters showing signs of growth or questioning things, there were two sequences where characters having arguments end up just delineating the key character traits of the other! Later on in the book, we’re presented with a character who seems to be a crazy ax murderer befitting a hammer horror film. There’s no pretense, no subtly to the derangement, it’s just “Look, see, she wants to split someone’s head open to examine a brain! It’s cool! See, we don’t need to hint at it or anything, the character will just exclaim their wants and motivations to the sky,” It’s sloppy and amateurish.

I had very high hopes for this book. Issue one was a lot of fun, playing on a lot fun concepts from around Sci- and Spy-Fi. Issue 2 took a bit of a detour into a bit of an obvious trap, but was still interesting. This one, though, just completely disappointed me. So much, in fact, that I’m going to be departing the book. If I can see the seams after only 3 issues, it’s not a good sign.

Joe Eisma’s art is really good all around, though in some places faces do look a little off – either plasticy or not fitting the situation.