Zeb Larson reviews Joyride #2…
Now an ongoing series! When Uma and the rest of the crew discover treasure on the ship, they head for the nearest place they can spend it: a planet-sized mall!
One of the themes of Rick & Morty could be summed up as “the universe is a crazy and chaotic place.” In that show, one would have to be somebody sort of insane to be able to really enjoy it (Rick), and somebody who doesn’t live on that scale would just come out of it traumatized. That theme also applies to Joyride, but it’s applied differently. While Uma is sort of crazy, and that craziness is a gift in allowing her to just immediately get used to a profoundly weird universe, it’s not traumatizing for the people around her. Instead, we get to see them have some badly needed fun because of it. In short, that’s what this issue could be best described as.
Uma, Catrin, and Dewwyd go a bit wild in the first place they encounter, an alien space station. While Uma is the first to get really into the madness of outer space, the other two start to go along with the fun. In between alien shopping and running from a shop that Uma robbed, they also meet an alien Kolstak who offers to act as a guide for them in exchange for transportation on their ship. But even though their joyride is a fun one, that doesn’t mean they aren’t attracting some unwelcome attention from police. Meanwhile, Earth’s Special Interceptor is getting ready to chase down the escapees and “welcome” them back into the fold.
Joyride is not a series that is trying to explain every minute detail of the universe, who the aliens are, or the other window dressing that makes up a universe. That might frustrate some readers (I’ll admit I’m one of those people who likes to piece together every small detail, so I scour this book and still come up short), but then again, that’s not how a joyride works. Uma and the others aren’t going to micro-analyze they come across, because they’re too busy having fun. And so, as a reader, that’s what I tried to focus on, and then I started really enjoying this book.
So many individual panels in this series are bursting with energy as the characters dash, jump and scurry around. Marcus To’s artwork really works for this book. There’s a kind of manic intensity to Uma that I actually find myself getting wrapped up in as I read (even though my rational brain keeps thinking something terrible is bound to happen), and that’s slowly rubbing off on Dewwyd and Catrin. Lanzing and Kelly’s decision to let Catrin and Dewwyd act as narrators is a break from the previous issue, but it’s a good decision because it allows us to get in their heads and see them change. Conversely, we aren’t privy to Uma’s thoughts here, and it puts the reader in the same position as the other two. We are, in effect, acted on by Uma.
There’s still a few lingering questions about the series that I want to see explored, the biggest of which is humanity’s decision to isolate itself. We’ve seen that while the cosmos has some hostile elements, it’s not full of genocidal beings or deadly viruses. Certainly, some of the beings exist on a higher plane than human beings, but not in a malevolent sense. Is that why humanity locked itself away in angry silence? The realization that we’re just another small part of a big galaxy? That seems to be where we’re headed, with the inevitable conflict between the Special Interceptor and Uma setting up opposite sides of that question. Uma wants to embrace the weirdness, while the Interceptor (and implicitly, earth’s government) want to play it safe and stick to the known.
What comes next for this series should make for a good trip.
Rating: 8.8/10
Zeb Larson
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published May 25, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
