Zeb Larson reviews Memetic #2…
The apocalypse continues in the second installment of the oversized, 48-page Memetic. In Day Two of this crisis, Aaron tries to escape his college campus overrun with Screamers, while Marcus and his Pentagon team attempt to track down the source of the meme and eliminate it before time runs out.
Memetic #2 continues on a dark path with this issue. None of this should come as a surprise given everything that has happened so far, but it just keeps building here. Honestly, I can’t really see a happy end to this comic, and given that we only have one issue left, we’re racing to the end of civilization. Memetic is, at its core, a story about how deeply lonely the apocalypse would be.
Aaron and Ryan are eventually forced to head out of Aaron’s dorm room to find some medication that he needs. Any hopes they held that the university health center would be safe are quickly shattered, and it becomes clear that there is a sort of society emerging among the infected. They try and hide in an abandoned apartment, but we already know that there isn’t going to be a happy ending. Marcus and his team attempt to take stock of the crisis by tracking down the person who posted the image, which came out of an IP address in Oregon. What becomes clear however is that the meme is continuing to evolve, and people are spreading it by new means.
Is interconnectedness always a good thing? The Good Times Sloth is of course fictional and an extreme example of how quickly something can spread, but we do live in a world where ideas, images, and stories can spread with astonishing speed. Whether you’re concerned about the possibility of an epidemic, a global recession, or a fake news story, human beings are the most connected to one another that they ever have been. The fact that the Screamers are determined to constantly move in groups and to spread the images to people who haven’t seen it yet suggests a kind of fear of being alone. Social networking certainly exists in part because of that fear, and the Screamers are the ultimate extension of that fear. Maybe Memetic is making an argument for being alone sometimes.
Aaron and Ryan’s relationship is so painful to watch unfold, especially when Ryan is talking about the reasons he fell in love with Aaron. We of course know as readers that things won’t last between them, which makes everything feel that much more tragic. Still the real pain is that their relationship is an example of real, human connection, which contrasts to the pseudo-connection the Screamers all share. It doesn’t bode well for the fate of love and human contact, at least not on these pages.
I’m less involved in Marcus and his compatriots than I am in what’s happening to Aaron. Part of that is because I decided early on that Marcus’ team doesn’t have a chance of stopping this outbreak, and even if they did succeed, most of society has effectively collapsed anyway. They feel like a narrative device to give us more information on the outbreak, which is useful, but there’s not the same kind of human feeling in their section of the comic.
My only regret is that this series stops next issue, when there’s so much left to muse about regarding the end of the world and loneliness. Still, this has been a really solid two issue ride, and I’m hoping issue three takes us out on a good note.
Zeb Larson
Originally published November 28, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
