Page 45 Review by Stephen
Increasingly this is becoming a book about families. Whose members treat each other very badly.
It's also a comic with powers but without the capes, and I love it.
Previously in UNCANNY SEASON ONE:
Weaver is a man who can, for a span, absorb other people's memories and physical capabilities. Take Mr Lee's bodyguard, Xiong, a black-belt in Taekwondo. One bluffed handshake later and Weaver's a champion too - plus he also "remembers" exactly what the bodyguard's packing. Well, almost. There's a limit to what you have time to recall in the middle of a duff-up.
I admire how Diggle has thought all of this through: both the potential and the pitfalls - the limitations without which there can be no tension. Here our newly formed gang of four's search for the Source of their preternatural abilities has taken them to a remote island. Wonder why Weaver's never flown a plane?
"We shoulda just rented a chopper instead."
"You know how to fly one?"
"You could pull it out of a pilot's head!"
"And then forget how to fly, two thousand feet above open water? No thanks."
With thrilling, shadow-strewn art richly textured by Aaron Campbell (THE TRIAL OF SHERLOCK HOLMES) whose wolves now haunt my own dreams, it's written by SNAPSHOT and THIEF OF THIEVES's Andy Diggle whose childhood memory of a night-time fair matches mine exactly:
"Smell of hot sugar and diesel.
"Whirling lights.
"Roar of generators under blaring music.
"And people. All the people in the world."
Weaver's first ally was Miss Maggie Ford, a woman with remarkable regenerative capabilities who used to work for Deacon Styles, an enigmatic and acquisitive man of many assets including the ability to cause changes in behaviour both in mind and body through neural induction. If that sounds tame, you'll soon think again. During a devious double-cross by Deacon which only just backfired they located Deacon's brother Morgan under circumstances which ensure there's no love lost between brothers. Morgan is a technopath - an electronics-orientated telepath, if you like - whose "residence" at the clandestine Cadre's HQ has given him the key to finding the Source. It's Weaver's father who abandoned him in parking lot aged 4. To find the Source they must first find Weaver's Dad which is where those fairground memories come in, now being used by their fourth member, Holly, a remote viewer who also used to work for Styles. Looks like those assets are diminishing rapidly but the first to find the Source will find almost everything else redundant.
Firstly, when that happens what happens is very clever indeed.
Secondly, the abandonment of young Weaver by his Dad late at night is ever so touching, especially after being seen from both their points of view. But wait until you find out what happens to a lad in social care when other people's memories - their very minds - start invading his own, unbidden, and all doctors and psychiatrists resort to textbook diagnoses.
Not nice at all, but I cannot emphasise strongly enough how much of this is far from obvious. You'll see what I mean in the very first chapter when it comes to ex combat medic, Denelle.
