The Allred clan are back with part three of Forager’s fever dream, and the wackiness continued unabated from the previous two installments.
Forager and Kuzuko, the little girl with the talking teddy bear that has accompanied him since the start of his odyssey, land in a field. Well, more accurately, Forager lands in a haystack and Kuzuko lands gently close-by. There’s yak snot, there’s chili and there’s Atlas, one of Jack Kirby’s lesser-known but still really cool creations, coming to ruin everything.
Atlas is accompanied by Chagra (from last issue…I said he’s be important!) and after a brief skirmish, the pair depart, leaving Forager, Kuzuko and the bear to rebuild their campsite. From there, we gather round the campfire and learn what exactly happened to Forager after his “death” in the classic Cosmic Odyssey series. Our hero learns that Orion brought his body back to New Genesis for burial at the bug colony. The bear tells Forager he’s not a bug, like Orion had called him. He’s a child of New Genesis, of The Source, and that he was born, not hatched.
And that’s when the issue gets weird. Or weirder, depending on your perspective. The kooky trio arrive at the city of Hyssa, the golden city of lizards, atop the yak from earlier. They’re following Atlas and Chagra, where the former is hellbent on killing Hyssa himself. Seems Hyssa burned down Atlas’s village and killed his parents, so his hatred comes from a powerful place.
To say the trip went poorly would be a colossal understatement. Things go sideways quicker than travel through a Boom Tube and Chagra escapes, bound for the Crystal Mountain. The Crystal Mountain is filled with reality shards, which are used to create possible realities throughout the time stream. And that, friends, is things REALLY go sideways.
Did I mention the wackiness? Half the time I have no idea what the hell’s going on in this book, and I’m good with that. Because it works. The Allreds continue to spin a tale that’s just flat out fun, one that’s so vastly different from anything else on the market. There are few books that I simply cannot wait for the next issue to ship, but this is one of them.
It’s going to be a long month until issue four ships.
