Review: Rick and Morty: ‘Heart of Rickness’ #3

Overview

It’s the third chapter chronicling the ongoing battle between the Sanchez/Smith family and their more adaptable but less technologically advanced doppelgängers. Rick and the grandkids, having parted ways as they navigate the brutal lands of the luddites, each have their own battles to deal with. Rick must come to terms with a multiverse of collateral Beth damage that keeps piling up, and Summer and Morty must figure out which one of them is better at playing it cool. Beth and Jerry continue fuelling the adorable alien rebellion fire on their vacation to the spa planet, and underrated actor Casper Van Dien finally gets the recognition he deserves.

Our Take

Two thirds of the way through ‘Heart of Rickness,’ we finally begin to engage with the importance of jigsaw puzzles and Jerry’s preternatural ability to ruin the moment. In this installment, Michael Moreci continues to display his ability to translate specific speech patterns into written text that manages to escape the death trap of pedantic predictability – much like the best translators of Ancient Greek, sometimes it’s more about the meaning behind the literal text. To truly bring out the spirit of America’s favourite disillusioned animated scientist, ‘Heart of Rickness’ uses subtle changes in text colour and size to convey Rick’s familiar vocalizations with panache, with the one-two punch of Priscilla Tramontano’s sprightly illustrations and Gabe Fischer’s bright colour work. The combination of all these factors makes ‘Heart of Rickness’ a zippy little read that stands just a little bit taller than the rest of the Rick and Morty oriented offerings from Oni Press. All three variant covers for this issue have their own unique charms – Tramontano’s ‘Summer V Summer’ cover combines flat retro style with battle dynamics to create an energetic scene, Lane Lloyd embraces the spirit of the primitive with a bunch of robot heads on spikes, and Marc Ellerby’s Basic Instinct Borg-Beth now with Snake Cannon Staff is giving us a whole new lewk.

In terms of content, ‘Heart of Rickness’ has a few ideas mixed in with the adventures, but rather than bash readers over the head with concept clubs, it tosses its beliefs aloft, and allows them to bounce through the essence of each teacher, like a beach ball at a Flaming Lips concert. On the Sanchez side of things, the healing synecdoche of performing life-restoring surgery on Borg-Beth is short-lived. As a coin-flippin’, risk-taking’ man of science. Rick understands that for every emergency that emerges, pretty much half of the Ricks succeed, while the other half fails. Sometimes when you shoot your daughter in the face, she turns out to be a squid. Sometimes, she isn’t. Sometimes, your car runs on a teeny-verse, sometimes that very same microcosm upends our pitiful notion of scale and expands to become all-encompassing, maybe even infinite. Or whatever.

On the surface of the Smith-side, the kids don’t agree on how to engage with their counterparts, and stuff gets messy. Is Morty feeling the anti-techno vibes? Is Summer faking fealty as part of her master plan? Either way, Summer gets her phone
smash on, and the world is better for it. Or is it?

Meanwhile, Beth and Jerry remain trapped in the spa-lands, learning lessons and letting each other down. Marriage is hard. Being a cute little alien in a consumerist culture is harder. We learn a lot about recharging blasters, and a little about being married. In the upcoming fourth and final issue, will all this content come together to create some semblance of meaning that benefit society, or will will conclude with a whimper or existential failure? Only time will tell, baby!!