Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
The Infinite Vacation #3 of 5
Image Comics
Spencer & Ward
After a long delay since the second issue of The Infinite Vacation, the third issue finally hits the stands with the same level of storytelling and artwork that the first two issues contained. This issue seems to explain much of the plot and, amazingly, it's actually not that confusing. Spencer has built up a good story to close on over the course of the final two issues of the mini-series. Hopefully the issues will ship in short order because I am gearing up for an incredible ending.
Though the issue contains a brief recap I found I needed to go back and re-read the first two issues to truly understand what was going on. Basically, the main "Mark" finds himself the target of a conspiracy to kill off all of the Marks that meet his bio imprint by the company that created the Infinite Vacation technology. As protection he jumps to another Mark's body and is now living as a "deadender" or someone who doesn't jump.
The gist of the plot is that if in a universe where every possible universe exists then there must be a universe where only one exists. To test out this theory the company is locating every Mark and killing them off basically. It's confusing when I try to summarize it but Spencer lays it all out very nice and neatly for the reader and it is a fairly brilliant plot hook.
The story excels in its artwork. Ward continues to layout panels that I've never seen before and use colors that make points jump out as well. He's got a bit of a break as this issue continues to use photos as pages and there a couple of pages where there is almost entirely text as if they are part of a slide show. However, the pages and panels where he illustrates are incredibly unique. The color palette in the book is also essential to matching the visuals to the themes in the story. Overall, it's a very good looking comic book.
The back page still advertises that issue four is coming out on April 27th 2011, so who knows when this mini-series will actually wrap up. However, this issue puts together a plot around a very confusing and seemingly endless concept. I enjoyed this issue and I think once this mini-series is complete I will look back on this issue as the point where Spencer set everything up to pull the rug out later. I definitely recommend checking this book out.
4 out of 5 Geek Goggles
