Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye #9 Review and **SPOILERS**

Into the Belly of the Gross

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: June 21, 2017

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

For most of us, our ability to handle “gross” increases as we get older. It’s partly a genetic thing, I suspect, an inherent way that we grow into the role of handling shitty diapers and other viscous fluids that expel from the average one year-old baby. It’s also a matter of familiarity, in that we’ve handled enough gross things by the time we’re twenty so that some stray vomit doesn’t make us instantly retch. Except in the case of bugs, where my wife is as afraid of a bug today as she was thirty years ago. Figure that one out! Meanwhile, we’ll be figuring out the latest issue of Cave Carson has a Cybernetic Eye, right here!

Explain It!

Things are still pretty chaotic, as Team Cave scrambles to leave their dimension and follow Whisper Borstein, before they are overwhelmed by zombies and something else untoward happens. They have to get their Mighty Mole back into operation, which seems to involve Wild Dog removing more stuff than he replaces. Meanwhile, in other dimensions, Whisper clutches the other Mighty Mole like some kind of hip-firing gun and destroys everything, all as part of its twisted plan to improve the lives of people across the multiverse. Why is it that so many mad scientists and demons never seem to have a plan for taking over the world beyond blowing up most or all of it? Like, you never hear plans for infrastructure or public education, just intentions to break the wills of people so they can erect statues in your name and toil endlessly in your precious gem quarries. Controlling everything implies a certain level of control, I think.

There’s a couple of scenes depicting relative quiet times for Whisper Borstein and his crew, because it’s not just Edward Borstein bursting with the evil energies of a timeless psychedelic demon, no he’s got back-up from the two toadies still piloting the pilfered Mighty Mole (operating the forward blasters, primarily, I’d assume) and Eddie’s son Paul tackling basic administrative duties. In between depleting dimensions of life, Edward and his son have a brief chat about the need to find a new host, and how swell it is to be part of a weaponized psychic organ like Whisper. This conversation is witnessed by Cave Carson’s cybernetic eye, still lodged within the folds of Whisper somewhere along its expansive surface. In Cave’s Mighty Mole, they discuss the ramifications of what they are seeing: an infinite curve of lives lived over and over again with slight variations. Chloe wants them to pick up an alternate version of her dead mother but Cave suggests this isn’t a great idea. And those toadies in the other Mighty Mole led by Ace discuss the morality of what they’re doing—their conversation is cut short, however, by the emergence of Cave Carson’s Mighty Mole and a resulting battle on the pulpy, oily surface of Whisper Borstein!

And it’s a pretty great extended action scene, with lots of blood and guts and brains and more blood. Cave’s team comes out on top and shares a few fist bumps on the surface of Whisper, meanwhile Paul and the remaining toady leap into a hastily-arranged vagina on Whisper’s purple mass and then everyone descends into a mountain using the mining laser on the front of one of the Mighty Moles. Cave and Johnny man their Mighty Mole and carve out a little extra rock to make sure they don’t get scraped off, and eventually the Whisper Brain Tentacles lands upon a pink crystal, which is actually the engagement ring for some much larger race of green humanoids in yet another dimension! Whisper assumes control of the giant betrothed, who kills her fiancé and flings Cave’s Mighty Mole into some cliffs like an annoying bug—Cave’s cybernetic eye right behind!

The back-up, more Wonderful World of Rocks with Professor Marc Bartow, and it’s another strangely-worded chuckle that is neither necessary nor offensive. But the issue—boy that was some crazy stuff with them fighting on Whisper! This issue was action-packed and I fairly well enjoyed all of it, but I’d say I’m about ready for this somewhat bloated story arc to conclude next issue. I mean, there have been enough developments throughout to keep it interesting, but I’m starting to feel the same inter-dimensional fatigue experienced by the story’s characters, and I’m about ready to see what a “stable” Cave Carson has a Cybernetic Eye looks like. Maybe he uses the eye to figure out puzzles in Highlights magazine? A person’s gotta have some downtime, is all I’m saying.

Bits and Pieces:

Things come to a pus-filled head on the grody surface of Whisper, as it/he/they continue their campaign of inter-dimensional psychedelic devastation. If you've been following the series to this point, you'll be glad to see this issue. If this is your first issue...well, drink some milk and lie down in a dark room. The visions should dissipate within a few hours.

8.5/10