Uber #19 - Avatar Press

UBER No. 19, October 2014

Whilst “Avatar Press” may well have thought that publicising Issue Nineteen of “Uber” as being a magazine which “has captivated the comics community with the horror and drama unfolding in the enhanced human warfare of World War Two”, it is probably questionable that all of this particular twenty-two page periodical’s 6,436 followers felt the same way. The edition does after all only contain four dialogue-heavy scenes, within which the characters do nothing else but talk and pontificate to one another. Indeed even the book’s British author ‘apologises’ for its plot being “a little quieter than normal” in his afterword.

However despite this disappointing lack of any actual wartime action, Kieron Gillen’s narrative does clearly still explore the unabated “misery” with which the Anglo-American comic book series has become synonymous. In fact the hideously deformed Leah Cohen talking about the joints in her horribly enlarged limbs constantly “screaming” even when not moving, makes for especially uncomfortable reading, and the “physical-focused Battleship” hasn’t even started trying to tear apart the grisly remains of the long-deceased Patrick O’Conner when she makes such an eye-wateringly painful remark.

Equally as disconcerting is the blatant prejudice found within the United States Army Enhanced Human Centre, where despite both Vernon and Freddie Rivers being “battleship candidates”, and thus being capable of withstanding “twenty four activations”, they are only to be made Heavy Cruisers because the American “Higher Command” have concerns that “it would be impolitic to give a negro soldier, who we have no means of overpowering, the ability to flatten Carolina…” A deeply disturbing scene which the former computer games journalist handles magnificently and which also provides this “start of a new arc, working under the title the Shadow War” with some real perplexing distasteful bite.

This comic also heralds “the return of the magnificent Caanan White” as the title’s main artist. Regrettably, due to the aforementioned nature of Gillen’s sedentary script, the penciller “who gave the first twelve issues of 'Uber' so much of their energy” has little actual action to depict. But that that still doesn’t stop him doing “a wonderful job” of illustrating Leah’s horrifying “flesh gone mad” physique.

The variant cover art of "UBER" No. 19 by Caanan White