This week sees the release of the penultimate issue of Zack Kaplan’s and Stephen Thompson’s Masterminds, put out by Dark Horse Comics. As with the previous issues, hold on tight, because the creative team never takes their foot off the gas pedal – this time filling the story with a dizzying amount of paranoia. The action comes fast, but sometimes at the cost of logic in the plot.
This fourth issue picks up right where Masterminds #3’s cliffhanger left us, with Edward poisoned by a scorpion’s sting and Angie desperately trying to solve the latest puzzle that will save his life. Although Thompson has mostly used standard, wide-screen panels throughout the series, in this scene he deftly varies the shape of those panels – while Thiago Rocha increasingly removes colors –to reflect Edward losing consciousness.
Courtesy of Dark Horse
After getting through this death trap, there is really only one page to rest before our protagonists are running for their lives again. The fast pace never lets up and may be the best part of this action adventure centered on corporate espionage in the tech/gaming world. Things move so fast, Edward ends up wearing a hospital gown for most of the issue – he never gets the chance to change clothes.
More so than in the first three issues, Kaplan really ramps up the paranoia in this chapter. At this point, Edward and Angie have figured out that they are being played by the so-called Masterminds more than they are playing the game. Their personal – and selfish – desire to get ahead made them easy targets for manipulation. They all too willingly committed acts of corporate espionage and theft at the behest of the Masterminds. Furthermore, this mysterious group seems to have unlimited power – controlling everything and seemingly everyone. You never know who might be working for them.
This issue also finally reveals the twist betrayal that we all should’ve seen coming. Accordingly, it’s completely understandable for Edward to be going crazy with paranoia. Kaplan and Thompson do a good job capturing that paranoia in Edward. We readers feel it, too.
Courtesy of Dark Horse
On the deeper, metaphoric level, Kaplan delivers a good message. The premise of Masterminds has always been a metaphor for that idea that life is a game in which the most successful, wealthy and powerful are the winners. But at this point, playing the game has made Edward so paranoid, he simply wants out. And a few conversations with the billionaire owner of the fictional Blazestar gaming company opens Edwards eyes to what living the life of success and wealth is really like.
Once again, Thompson draws everything as a big budget action movie. The settings are glamorous, expansive, full of life and rich in details. The characters look like movie stars. And their facial expressions are very important in progressing the action in this issue. Unfortunately, it’s exactly the facial expressions that tend to be Thompson’s main weakness. They sometimes look a little static or slightly unnatural – especially when mouths are open – like the character is only posing and not actually moving.
Courtesy of Dark Horse
On the down side, I’d have to admit this is the weakest issue of Masterminds so far. The whole mini-series demands the reader suspend their disbelief in order to accept the crazy premise. As long as the rest is good, I can do that. But this issue includes one too many instances of leaps in logic which couldn’t be ignored.
Too often I found myself wondering why the characters would do what they are doing. It became too obvious that some things are happening simply because it’s where the plot is supposed to go. But I’m afraid there would be too many plot holes if I spent more time thinking about them.
Most of these leaps in logic are connected to leaps between scenes, which happen without enough logical transition from the previous scene. For example, at the end of one page Edward is on the run through the city. On the next, he’s in the penthouse of Blazestar’s CEO, who apparently believes everything Edward has to say. But there’s no logical reason why the CEO would invite Edward in or even want to talk to him. At this point in the story, it would be much more likely for him to have Edward arrested on the spot. I know Kaplan was already packing as much plot as possible into a 32-page comic, but a few panels of transition to explain how Edward got where he was would’ve been nice.
From the very first issue, Zack Kaplan and Stephen Thompson were running a gambit with Masterminds – balancing the strengths against some obvious problems. In the first three issues, the fast pacing, fun puzzles, action-movie elements and layers of symbolism far out-weighed the improbable premise that demanded a suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, in Masterminds #4, those weaknesses start to catch-up with the positives. The action built upon a palatable paranoia along with the thematic message continue to carry the book. But, the leaps in logic and the leaps between scenes were too big to ignore this time.
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