Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye #8 Review and **SPOILERS**

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I Got So High I Could Hear My Eye

Written By: Jon Rivera 

Story By: Gerard Way & Jon Rivera 

Cover & Interior Art By: Michael Avon Oeming 

Cover & Interior Colors By: Nick Filardi 

Letters By: Clem Robins 

Back-up Words By: Mark Russell 

Back-up Art By: Benjamin Dewey 

Cover Price: $3.99 

On Sale Date: May 17, 2017

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

You know, it’s sort of tough to maintain a comic book titled Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye when the titular character doesn’t even have said cybernetic eyeball. I expect that will be remedied soon, however, based on the solicits and because I don’t think they’d jerk us around like that. Am I a naïve milkbaby? Read my review of issue #8 to find out!

Explain It!

Last issue, we saw Fawcett City reduced to rubble before the pulpy, floating mass of Edward Borstein mixed with the Whisperer, and this one begins the same way but with a helpful caption explaining that it’s “a different Earth.” While Cave’s been unconscious with his cybernetic eye traipsing about, they’ve not only traveled across the country but through the multiverse, following Borstein in his search for…I dunno, more conquest or whatever. After a short goodbye to the space his wife’s grave would occupy in his dimension, Cave assembles the team of Chloe, Wild Dog, Johnny Blake, and those two other renegades from EBX mining, I never quite caught their names. We can call them Cannon and Fodder. Cave gives ‘em all a rousing speech that would make ordinary people want to stick an icepick in their faces, and then it’s off to confront Eddie B. He’s learned a new trick, though: by peeling back the skin covering dead people’s eye sockets and exposing a band of blue, glowing skull, he can turn them into mindless servants! It’s nice to see the elderly still willing to learn new things.

Edward’s son Paul is in charge of ground detail, with a cat monk and Ace in assistance. They plan to move on from this dimension to one that’s more “happening,” but first they do plan to say goodbye to Cave and his crew. They’re cruising towards Eddie in their stolen Mighty Mole, and suddenly attacked by mind-controlled zombies with laser rifles, so they cut a hard right into a university and come across Professor Marc Bartow, Cave Carson’s geology instructor, mentor and psychedelic guru! He’s giving a lecture to a room full of dead students, which is just like that ol’ so-n-so. Seems he’s dead in Cave’s world, but not in this dimension…or something. Chloe seems to think it implies that her mom is still alive somewhere, but take it from someone who knows Chloe: the multiverse is never that simple. While having a pow-wow with Prof. Barstow, Cave gets a wicked migraine—the second one this issue—that heralds some kind of warning from his cybernetic eye. And you know, this warning is right on the money because here comes a gross tentacle from Edward smashing through the ceiling!

Fodder is out of commission, cut in twain, and Jack Wheeler aka Wild Dog is bleeding out. Chloe offers some quick first aid by sticking a tampon in the wound (yes, really) then tries to drag her dad away from a direct confrontation with this Lovecraftian monster that has now busted up their Mighty Mole. Edward prepares to flee this dimension, and Johnny is ready to pack it in, but then Cave gets another wicked migraine and instructs everyone to get back in the vehicle! It seems he’s got a plan to take care of Edward Borstein and the Whisperer on this Earth and every Earth—and it looks like Crisis on Infinite Cave Carsons!

Then the back-up, another installment of the Wonderful World of Rocks, which is…something. But man, this issue of Cave Carson was far out…sort of all over the place, with lots of psychedelia that I’m not sure applied. Like, if they’ve sucked down Night Pudding or inhaled some weird fungi or otherwise done something to trip the light fantastic, I can try to cope, but there are a lot of oddball background and coloring decisions that are bold and interesting, but confused the storytelling a bit for me. As for what did happen in the story, it’s fairly mind-blowing and I am pretty annoyed to have to wait another month to see what happens. So, job well done folks. Let’s do this job a little faster and turn this into a bi-weekly, yeah?

Bits and Pieces:

A highly mind-bending issue that might frazzle even the most cybernetic eyeballs, there's a development here that kicks this story up to "berzonkers." The comic book has the best problem, in that it leaves you annoyed for wanting more immediately. Much like Cave Carson's eye socked is wanting for a cybernetic eye! See what I did there? Not if you're missing your eyes!

8/10