Zeb Larson reviews Southern Cross #5…
Alien artifacts and murder as The Cross veers off course.
Southern Cross’ fifth issue gives us some answers about just what the hell is happening on this ship, while leaving just enough mystery for us to grapple with as we approach the conclusion. Saying any more about the events of the issue would spoil not just the events, but the central mystery of much of the book, and so I will save the rest for my analysis. Suffice it to say that this was another good issue in a book that has struck a good balance between mystery, horror, and science-fiction. I will be discussing spoilers in this review, so consider yourself forewarned.
Braith bursts onto the bridge and tells the crew what’s been going on. She is sensitive to the pulses of the ship’s engine, and the ship has been receiving pulses from somewhere else. The two pulses are communicating with each other. When Braith presses St. Martin, St. Martin reveals that she was hired by the Seven Hands to bring alien artifacts back from Titan aboard the ship. Braith next confronts Lon, who gives her a few evasive answers before revealing he has one of the artifacts. Another entity appears to chase Braith, and she narrowly manages to get to the engine room and shut the drive off. After she does, Lon reappears and tells them that they’ve found their destiny, as he cuts a crewmember’s throat.
While the events of this issue leave one with a lot of questions, there are a few things being cleared up. Whatever Braith has been seeing on this ship is not insanity or hallucinations fed by guilt (though Cloonan did a strong job in keeping that possibility alive). There is some kind of presence or entity on the ship, and the artifacts that St. Martin is carrying and Lon took or stole is connected to them. We still don’t know exactly how Amber was connected to the Seven Hands, why the Hands are interested in the artifacts, or what these entities exactly are. Whatever it is though is unlikely to be friendly, and the ship is probably about to meet whatever it is.
It was fun to see Braith fully embrace her bad past and go chasing after the rest of the crew while she was high. We’ve known Braith had a dark history through most of this book, but her affiliation with the Seven Hands raising some interesting possibilities. Was her connection to Amber what potentially drew the Hands, Amber, and the artifacts together? St. Martin hasn’t given us all of the facts. Then of course there’s the nature of the artifacts, which is only tenuously explored here.
I’m curious what the future of this series is going to be given that we’re so close to the conclusion. Earlier issues pretty explicitly stated that Braith was going to die (though that could have been misinformation), and we’re just now getting the news about these artifacts, it would be nice to see a subsequent volume exploring them in greater detail. I’d like to see where this goes.
Rating: 9.1/10
Zeb Larson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=qvTY7eXXIMg
Originally published September 16, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
