By Justin McCarty
This installment of Eugenic is a much smaller story than the first issue. This is a story of young idealists and their dissent. The Numans have risen to power and humans are no longer the top of the food chain. In fact, humans are now considered to be no better than any other animal. In this issue, we get to a distinctly dystopian view of society. Can a society designed to be perfect still be evil?
We are living in Numerica, the outwardly utopian world that Dr. Cyrus Crane started the world on the path towards a couple hundred years prior. Bekk lives in Pariah 9, a dystopian city designed to keep humans in check while they wait to be placed in Numan homes. (Numans are the creatures Dr. Crane created out of the virus that nearly wiped out humanity. They now are the dominant life-form of Earth.) The propaganda given to the residents is that this is how best for Numans and humans to live side-by-side. Bekk doesn’t buy it. She and a small team of dissenters have a plan to expose the Numans as actual monsters.
Eugenic is well done. James asks hard questions: Can there ever really be no oppression? Is it possible to have power without corruption? Eugenic spends its time this issue exploring what a world where humans are not the dominant life-form would look like. The humans live under Numan hegemony and its propaganda misleads the humans into thinking they have a choice. It’s clear they do not. A good portion of the book is taken up by the Numan Director, it makes the book feel longer than it is. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. We spend a lot of time catching up on the last two hundred years of progress, slowing the reading way down.
James and Erik have crafted a dystopian world with taut plotting and theme. The uniqueness of the Numans is imaginative and weird. The neon colors with its bright pops of pinks and purples keep the Numans otherworldly. Earthier tones are used for the humans and their personal interactions, balancing the two sides of this world. The prejudiced attitudes of the Numans come through in the dialogue. Their way of speaking about the humans is natural, the Numans really believe they are the superior species.
Aside from the exposition toward the middle of the book, the plot is pretty tight. We get all the information we need for the main character to root for her. The plot isn’t unpredictable, but what we want for this story is a plot that stays out of the way letting us figure this world out. Having Bekk take a test serves the plot and illustrates the facade of Numerica. A couple of particularly well written moments in the book really drive home the point of the story: Bekk comes home to Kitty, a wheelchair-bound woman, she is disabled and gay. Outwardly she projects happiness and contentment, inwardly she has no sense of belonging. Later, Bekk is being examined by two Numan doctors. They speak of her as if she is an animal. Despite what the citizens of Pariah 9 and the other human camps have been told, the Numans really do not value human life.
Eugenic is asking big questions and illustrating where those questions may lead us. This comic does dystopian fiction right. Of course, this is a comic from the masters of this type of thought-provoking sci-fi.
We jump ahead another two hundred years in the next issue. What is next for the human race?
Score: 4/5
Eugenic #2
BOOM! Studios