Review: Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye #1

Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart teamed up a number of years ago to do a three-issue Vertigo project simply titled Seaguy, the proposed first chapter of a trilogy.  The project didn’t quite take off, though, and for a long time it seemed as though the whole thing was dead in the water.  Since becoming one of the most high-profile, controversial writers in comics, however, the Powers That Be apparently decided that a second mini from Grant Morrison, post Batman R.I.P. and Final Crisis might be met with more success, and so part two – Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye - began.

The original served simultaneously as a rousing indictment of the pomp and excess of the modern comics industry, a stirring love-letter to the medium itself, and a rousing, bizarre adventure in and of itself.  Not for everyone, the utter, implacable oddity of the first series served as a turn-off to some, and their minds certainly won’t be changed by the sequel – Morrison and Stewart have compromised nothing here in their… unique vision.

Picking up where the last left off, Seaguy finds himself trapped in a dissatisfying life that doesn’t quite feel right.  He doesn’t know why, what’s changed, that he’s been brainwashed by the sinister Mickey Eye into accepting a reality slightly changed, slightly darker, than the one in which he grew up.  Rife with beautiful, disturbing imagery from Stewart and plenty of symbolism, the issue is a fairly dense read, well worth the price tag… if you don’t mind things getting a little bit strange.  A near perfect issue of set-up for another bizarre, genrebending three-issue mini.

Grade: A

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