TITLE: Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye Vol. 1: Going Underground TPB
YEAR: July 2017
COMPANY: Young Animal
Writers: Jon Rivera, Gerard Way
Artist: Michael Avon Oeming
Colorist: Nick Filardi
Letterer: Clem Robins
Many issues before Batman would be the main character featured primarily in the “Brave and the Bold” comic series, with issue #31, the comic would introduce “Cave Carson Adventures – Inside Earth”.
Created by France Herron and Bruno Premiani in 1960, Cave Carson’s adventures beneath the Earth’s surface would continue in Showcase and for the most part an obscure character used sparingly, throughout the years, Cave Carson wouldn’t be prominent until writers Jon Rivera and Gerard Way would bring him back, relaunching and reinventing the character in 2016 for DC Comics imprint, Young Animal. And give him his own comic book series titled “Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye”.
Gerard Way, best known as the lead vocalist and co-founder of the rock band My Chemical Romance has done well in the comic book industry with his mini-series “The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys” and the Eisner Award winning comic book, “The Umbrella Academy”.
With Dan Didio giving Gerard the “Encyclopedia of the DC Universe”, always looking for obscure characters, when he got to the “C” portion, he discovered Cave Carson and remembering reading the character in “Who’s Who in the DC Universe” as a child and sure enough, with so little information about the character available, Gerard Way and team began working on “Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye”.
With the TPB, you get the first six issues of the comic book series and we see Cave Carson as a family man, while his relationship with his adult daughter Chloe hasn’t been the best since the death of his wife.
Cave works with EBX and busy with development of the Mighty Mole Mark II but lately he has been concerned because he has been seeing things with his cybernetic eye, primarily his wife Eileen. The doctor tries to help Cave with the hallucinations that he has been experiencing with his eye and is curious about the metal surrounding the eye made from a mysterious type of metal.
As he recommends Cave to get some sleep, he awakens to find a Muldroog (a race of people living under the Earth) and found out that the corporation he works for, EBX is doing something under the Earth.
Not long after, the Muldroog is split open when a monster comes out of him. Wondering what is going on, he goes to his boss, Paul Borsten’s office and he tells Cave that they have been working with the Muldroog for years doing business for precious minerals and Borsten confronts Cave about the true identity of his wife Eileen, that she was the Princess of the clan Scoria and rigthful heir to the throne of Muldroog and wants to know why Cave kept it all a secret.
And then Borsten tells Cave that EBX needs his daughter Chloe, which Cave tells him that she is not an EBX assett but he tells Cave that he has sent men to get her right now.
Meanwhile, when Chloe arrives back to her apartment with her boyfriend, they are greet with three men who begin shooting. She manages to fight back and escape, meanwhile Cave manages to cause a diversion inside EBX and takes the Might Mole Mark I. With the help of Wild Dog, Cave and Wild Dog are able to get Chloe and begin heading underground while a monster chases them.
Borsten ends up getting a special force to capture Cave Carson underground.
But what will Cave, Chloe and Wild Dog discover as they try to learn the truth of what EBX has done under the Earth. And why they are intent of trying to capture Chloe?
Overall, the first volume of “Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye” is quite entertaining. I like the overall vibe of the series and thank goodness that the art remains consistent for the first six issues, unlike the experience I had with “Mother Panic” in which the artwork immediately changed after issue #4.
It’s important to note that the series does have nudity and profanity, so parents thinking this is a good adventure comic book TPB for the kids may want to be aware of that.
But for the most part, I am enjoying the storyline that Gerard Way and Jon Rivera has managed to create and the storyline no doubt gets even better with issue #6, so I can’t wait for the next TPB volume collecting the next six issues when released.
A thrilling series so far, I definitely recommend “Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye Vol. 1: Going Underground” TPB!