Comic Review: gen:LOCK “down:FALL Part 2”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

As the Shogunate rampages through Osaka, the gen:LOCK team beg to regain control of their Holons, though that might not help much. Cammie explains to them the failures of the three sisters who would become Sycorax, the group that now uses the mech that was built to protect this city to destroy it. The three, along with Chase, believe that destroying everything will bring true end to the conflict, which I guess is true in a sense.

Anno is blanking on what to do as his trump card is out of his control, but isn’t about to let Kazu and his team show him up, even if he might be their only chance. So when he won’t listen to reason, Kazu, Yaz, and Val decide…to just jump over the wall and take the Holons back by force. Not sure why they didn’t do that earlier but whatever. The Shogunate then makes its way to face the Union forces, with Chase eager to end the war.

OUR TAKE

You know, I’ve had a lot of things irk me about this series in these past ten issues. The pointless narration, the wonky artwork, the fact that it seems more interested in exploring character backstories than the actual show it’s based on does, even the seeming contradiction of having three other pilots who came before the supposed “first ever compatible” Julian Chase. But now we’ve come to this issue, which seems rather nonchalant about doing likely irreparable harm to Chase’s character. I may not have been the biggest fan of the guy, but I could at least tell he was doing what he could to fight for the cause of protecting innocent people and defending them from Union attacks. What I did not take him for is someone willing to go completely psycho on the off chance he might end the war by destroying an entire city.

Chase has certainly been a bit of a daredevil at times, but I never saw him be so desperate for the conflict to end that he’d endanger civilians, let alone actively let them die by wanting to allow nanotech to kill everyone (especially since, as far as we know, that tech KILLED HIS MOTHER AND SISTER). The only way I see out of this for him is that he got mind controlled by Sycorax, but even that is not going keep him from a court martial and being grounded indefinitely, assuming he isn’t locked up and experimented on in a dark closet. I mean for god’s sake, how am I supposed to go into the next season of this knowing that he’s responsible for these atrocities and still root for the guy? Heck, maybe he’s more like Nemesis than he thought, which does not bode well for the team either way.

Oh yeah, and I guess Kazu had the culmination of his own character arc in this story, which amounts to…break the rules just like what got you demoted in the first place, only this time do it with friends. That leap over the wall of the base seems like it’s meant to be a big triumphant moment, but it’s not like he was expecting much of Anno to begin with, so he really could have done that at any time. But that’s pretty small in comparison to the stuff happening to Chase-orax, who has officially gone off the deep end with only the slightest nudge. We look to be coming in on the climax of this story soon, so let’s see how this wraps up and then pray that this is not meant to be a canon story.