Cave Carson Has an Interstellar Eye

“Cave Carson’s” first volume was a surprisingly entertaining adventure that displayed an impressive balance of humor, quirk, and action.  Its second volume disrupted that balance by bringing in a bit too much psychedelia and surrealism into the narrative.  This third (and sadly final) volume manages to strike a welcome middle ground by having the psychedelia spice up the narrative while still keeping things focused.  This is how we get Cave, his daughter Chloe, and version-of-a-friend-from-an-alternate-universe Marc going through the cosmos on some crazy adventures. Whether it’s meeting up with larger-than-life rock god friend Star Adam to witness his final days, encountering the Lazer Monks trapped in an endless cycle of betrayal and war, or having an acrimonious reunion with a lost friend while trying to save a protoplasmic prince who’s sustaining an entire planet.

It’s all as deeply weird as it sounds, and a lot of fun too.  Writer Jon Rivera keeps the pace brisk and the tone upbeat for the majority of the volume.  He also creates a believable father/daughter dynamic between Cave and Chloe as they’ve patched up their fractured relationship from the first two volumes, but still have to work through the years of bad feelings prior to that.  Eccentric presences like Marc and Star Adam also help to keep things lively, as does the outstanding art from Michael Avon Oeming. The first two volumes really gave the artist a chance to let his freak flag fly, and throwing him into a cosmic setting only lets him get wilder and crazier.  I’ll admit that sometimes things can get a bit too strange, where clarity is sacrificed for spectacle. These moments are thankfully the exception rather than the rule and the end result is a volume that provides a worthy finish to the saga of Cave Carson and his Cybernetic/Interstellar Eye.