Comic Review: gen:LOCK “game:OVER Part 1”

OVERVIEW

Cammie takes over narration duties for this issue as the GL crew (sans Migas, who is being tortured) look for a safe haven to stay at and recover. They soon find their way to Kazu’s parents, Toshiro and Zariku (which I’m not sure is a real name). Unlike their gruff child, the Iidas seem to be perfectly sweet people, with Zariku, AKA Riku the Relentless, being a famous singer and Toshiro being a gamer. Speaking of which, Cammie decides to game with Chase and Caliban for a bit to cool off, only to find the agents of Sycorax ready to face them…in RHYME!

OUR TAKE
Bit of a delay, but we’re back with the next installment of the gen:LOCK comic. And just like the rest of these half issues, not a lot worth talking about really happens. If anything, I feel like I have more questions than answers by this point, generating mostly from the introduction of Kazu’s parents. I suppose it’s surprising that such a rough and tumble customer came from two people who seem to be the epitome of relaxed. You’re likely meant to think that someone like him came from a more traditional Japanese family, only to find that they’re not only NOT super traditional, but pretty artsy and fun-loving folks at that. That kind of leaves room open to thinking that maybe THEY were the ones with traditional upbringings which THEY rebelled against. Then they brought that into raising Kazu, who ended up like this because parents worry so much about NOT screwing up their kids the same way but then screwing them up a totally different way. Guess we’ll see how that plays out if we get back to it.

That’s the brunt of this issue, which I’ve basically used up as a talking point, but there are at least a few smaller points that do deserve a bit of recognition. We’ve shifted to our third narrator after Chase and Kazu, leaving Val and Yaz and possibly Caliban and Migas for the remaining issues (which I THINK might be seven?). So far, adding these narrations don’t really add anything and honestly read sort of out of character, so I can’t say I’m really looking forward to more. Speaking of Migas, I imagine that we won’t be seeing much of him until he’s ready to be rescued, but given that this is supplementary material, I’m 99% certain that his life is not in danger here. And the issue ends with a revisiting of the Scyorax subplot, which only seems to appear whenever someone is playing Siege. I’m still kind of interested to see how this relates to Chase and possibly Caliban (what with the Shakespeare references and all) but it really needs to get a move on with establishing its relevance. We’re barely getting anything from the plot with the Japanese polity, so any further cohesion we can get would be absolutely welcome at this point. I don’t remember if we’re halfway through or not, but it’s getting harder to really keep track of the story’s pacing so let’s get a move on here