Black Science #11

written by Rick Remender
art by Matteo Scalera
colors by Michael Spicer

The threats that have been gathering for since the scientists first launched the pillar come to a head in the end to Black Science's second arc:  the army of mind-reading, nihilistic millipedes; an alternate-dimension Grant and Sara McKay, decorated with onion logos taken as trophies off other dead McKays, looking to save our Pia and Nathan by kidnapping them; the fiery plant spirit possessing Chandra, "savior of a dying people" (Black Science #11: 14), is finally confronted by Rebecca who catches her making schematic notes about the pillar; the other onion-less McKay tracking them all down across worlds.  The convergence of these threats doesn't exactly resolve itself.  And the convergence of no less than three different pillars—and one detailed blueprint with instructions—doesn't exactly diminish the threats themselves.

And above them all, watching these different iterations play themselves out in mirrors across worlds, is the winged mantis.  By the time renegade McKay announces that they must "go to the center of the onion" (28), we've already begun to suspect that this might just be it.

If Black Science's dimension-jumping conspiracies are hopelessly contorted versions of familiar sci-fi ideas, compelling but tortuous, its characters are exceptionally well-wrought, sometimes infuriatingly credible.  And yet, Remender has a habit of keeping the narrative voice off balance.  When Black Science #11 opens—"If you run on lies long enough they become your truth" (1)—it could be nearly anyone.  After all, lies more or less drive the characters of Black Science, lies to themselves as much as anything.  Even after learning that it is Kadir, echoes of McKay are easy to hear.

Colorist Michael Spicer takes over this issue for paint artist Dean White, and while he does an admirable job approximating the series' characteristic aesthetic, Black Science's art lose something in its depth, palate complexity and texture, especially in its larger illustrations.