Zeb Larson reviews Southern Cross #3…
The Southern Cross begins to give up its secrets, and Braith finds that the more she learns about her sister’s death, the less she actually knows her.
Southern Cross continues its unique blend of science-fiction and gothic horror. In this issue, Braith learns more about the dead man in her cabin, the functioning of the ship, Kyril, and the captain’s past. Getting closer to the mystery doesn’t bring any relief for her though, and what little she learns only raises greater questions about what happened to her sister. I will be discussing spoilers in this review, so only read on if you’ve read the issue or don’t mind the events being spoiled for you.
Braith flees from the apparition in her room and eventually finds the captain, who surprisingly does not dismiss her concerns as crazy. He explains that the malfunctioning gravity drive can cause hallucinations and hallucinations, though he acknowledges that they need to find Braith’s missing roommate. Later in the mess, Braith runs into Kyril and lets slip that she knows who he’s working for, though she does not specifically disclose who that is. Braith then visits the doc and does some a bit of snooping about the death in her room, which the captain worked to have listed as a suicide instead of a mysterious death. When she goes to talk to him, she learns a few more things about the ship, the captain, and something else as the person in the drive speaks to her.
Gothic horror works best when the author tries to strike a balance between madness or the supernatural as the cause of the haunting, with guilt always present. This series is living up to that. It could be that all of this, even the ghostly person in the engine could just be hallucinations from a really screwed up gravity drive. Or it could be that this is all the result of angry ghosts haunting the ship. It could also be both: Braith is seeing things even as there are ghosts coming out of the walls. Even in the scene with the gravity drive, we don’t explicitly know that the captain sees it as well: he only reacts because the drive is acting up and doesn’t mention the person. Cloonan is giving us just enough clues for both that it could be either.
I wasn’t expecting the captain to get such a sympathetic treatment in this issue, in part because his aloofness suggested some kind of misdeed. Granted, that is true to a certain extent, but he’s clearly not a bad person. With the captain out of the mix, who really is pulling the strings on this ship? Is some member of the crew in cahoots with Kyril? And how does the company relate to all of this, especially with Erin’s disappearance? There are a lot of threads to tie together here, and I’ll be curious to see how Cloonan pulls it all together.
Zeb Larson
https://youtu.be/8HTiU_hrLms?list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
Originally published May 13, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
