Comic Review: gen:LOCK “con:QUEST Part 2”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The remaining gL team confront Sycorax and Chase (who I guess already finished with getting rid of the nanocloud like he said he would?) and beg him to come back with them, though he tells them that he’s working with Sycorax to save lives…even though he should know that’s not true by now. But after a brief fight between the two sides (Yaz in a mage vs mage fight, Kazu in a blade vs blade fight, Val with her steampunk Gatling gun against the dragon, and Cammie vs Chase), Yaz tells him that “no one dies today!”…again, being fully aware that people have definitely died by this point. She then tells him she should have taken charge of the team so that he could mourn his old life, which is enough to get him to change sides again, so Migas gets everyone out and into their Holons for the final battle.

OUR TAKE

Issue 6 is in the books as we set the stage for the final two chapters/final issue in this miniseries. I get that we’re meant to think that this is a touching way of reminding Chase who he used to be and getting him to come to his senses, but…all it really does for me is show just how easily influence he is. He joined Sycorax on just the slightest bit of connection to them as experiments of Weller’s, but then he goes back when Yaz has to remind him “hey, you’re human too” and bringing up a matter about her not taking charge which I don’t remember EVER being a real point of contention between them before now.

If he was feeling the pressure to be their leader and end the war in order to live up to that, then MAYBE it would fit but he’s pretty much been the same casual equal rank guy with them that he’s always been. And even then, as mentioned in previous issue reviews, there’s no way he gets out of this without some major reevaluation as a soldier, because it should not be that easy to become an Anakin Skywalker style “I WILL BRING PEACE TO THE WORLD BY KILLING MORE PEOPLE” unless he has some major screws loose. It wasn’t even a plan that made any sense! Him going back just as quickly as he left doesn’t mean he’s a good friend or person, it just means he’s a flip flopper.

Oh yeah, and Kazu has a brief throwaway resolution to his non-arc in this series about knowing who he is and how gen:LOCK team is his real family and blah blah blah. At this point I’m just waiting for this to be over so I can look back on it as a fun check in with the characters between seasons but ultimately disposable and misguided. And unless the final issue/chapters are a major cut above (and don’t reuse panels mere pages apart from each other, which happened TWICE this time), that’s probably all it’ll ever be in the grand scheme of the franchise. It’s been just about a year since the first season finale aired and still months away from the beginning of Season 2, but I can’t imagine it could be worse than this. I’m going to keep an open mind, which will be easy with two weeks between chapters, but past behavior is likely the best predictor of future results.