Zeb Larson reviews Narcopolis: Continuum #3…
On the run and short on time, Ben must face the ultimate evil in order to alter history – drug lord Todd Ambro (aka his boss)! Every choice made from this pivotal moment forward will not only affect his future but his past as well. Reunited with his father in the darkest timeline yet, Ben learns the hard way that you can transcend time and space…but you can never go home. The penultimate chapter of this time-hopping adventure begins here in Part 3 of this 4-part series.
Ben Grieves’ attempt to go back in time and save his father has hit a major snag. It might seem like the fist fight he’s currently in with his father is the snag, but that’s only a tiny part of the problem. Something like time is difficult to control, and as Ben tries to go backwards to save his dad, the more everything else keeps changing. Meanwhile, Todd Ambro is never too far away. Can Ben get any of this under control? Or is it too late? Warning: I will be discussing spoilers from here on out.
Ben and his father tussle for a bit before Ben is able to convince him that he’s actually his soon. There’s a far bigger problem than the punches that were thrown. In this reality, Ben died in a shootout in the past, and his mother overdosed on drugs not too long after. Before long, Todd Ambro’s goons catch up with Ben and his father, and he tries to flee farther back into the past. Nothing works though, and where he ends up next is similarly compromised. In the end, he’s left with only one person to track down to try and fix this: Ambro.
For all of his evil, Ambro’s motives in all of this are still kind of a mystery. We know that he’ll end up ruining the future with this technology (an easy outcome to imagine), but are his plans just the standard corporate misuse of time-travel technology? His organization and planning, across timestreams, is nothing short of incredible. Moreover, has Grieves finally put the drug right into Ambro’s hands by trying to put an end to this? He ignored all of the good advice that his future selves offered to him, each time hoping to prove them wrong and set things right. In doing so, has he irrevocably doomed the future?
That’s what this book seems to be coming down to. Nevermind managing to save his father; if what we saw in this issue was any indication, trying to save his family has actually managed to make things worse. Now the question is whether he can simply stop a dystopia from coming to pass. Grieves’ conversation with Ambro in the finale should make for good reading.
Rating: 8/10
Zeb Larson
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Originally published March 2, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
