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Fly, The - Outbreak #2
Released by: IDW Publishing
Released on: April 15th, 2015.
Written By: Brandon Seifert
Illustrated by: menton3
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Need to get caught up? Check out our review of the first issue here.
When our second issue begins, Beth Brundle, wife of Dr. Martin Brundle, video chats with her husband. He's been quarantined and the military officers that oversaw the operation wouldn't tell her why. She's understandably concerned about her husband and so he explains to her what happened. The last injection that he gave to Bartok didn't 'fix' his fruit-fly genes but instead enhanced them. When Bartok lost control and went on the attack, Martin and a few others were exposed to his blood and possibly contaminated by it. She presses him with more questions but he logs off suddenly.
From here we see Martin confront Major Vurvin and Doctor Mayweather. They want him to develop a cure but in order to do that he needs to be left alone. They oblige and he gets online with Beth again, telling her that he's got the telepods he needs to do his research and that he's quarantined on a facility in North Brother Island (if you're not familiar with the history of the Brother Islands, check it out here - fascinating stuff!). He levels with her about the reality of the cure he thought he was close to and then we cut to a cafeteria where Martin eats alone. The 'normals' don't want anything to do with him, they figure he has to be infected, but a lone nurse, Martin's assistant Noelani, sits down to talk to him. Martin explains the way that the mutation spreads after she starts asking him about it. As he explains the different stages of the mutation taking effect, we see another inmate in the quarantine station exhibiting said signs - a beautiful redhead easily capable of manipulating some of the men around, maybe even the guards, into satisfying her hypersexuality brought on by contamination.
When that guard she fucked starts showing signs of super strength and unusually aggressive behavior, it's obvious that things are spreading. Martin talks to Beth online again, but just as she's about to give him a show of her own, he's interrupted by Noelani, the nurse he had spoken to earlier. She knows he's got some pent up desires and aims to take advantage of them, but she's also showing other symptoms.
Brandon Seifert's twisted tale of science gone wrong continues to take some interesting twists and turns in this second issue of the comic book sequel to the David Cronenberg/Chris Walas Fly movies made for 20th Century Fox in the eighties. While this issue does feature a fair bit of action and horror, the emphasis of this particular issue is more heavily slanted to the character development side of things. This is handled mainly through the pages that detail Martin's webcam sessions with Beth. Their relationship feels real enough here and we see here not only their fears and worries but also, in the sequence where Beth decides she'll give Martin a cam-show, their very human desires as well. Sex, in fact, plays a big part in this issue. It's not only a link between husband and wife but also the impetus for Noelani's lashing out at Martin. But we'll say no more about that, lest we spoil things for those who haven't read the issue yet. Seifert's tendency to use real locations and to even use parts of the actual history behind those locations is a nice touch too (at one point Martin notes that he's in the same hospital that once housed Mary Mallone, better known as Typhoid Mary, and she really was confined there until her death).
The artwork from menton3 continues to suit the story well. Most of the issue takes place inside dark rooms so the backgrounds aren't hyper detailed here but they don't need to be. A photograph of North Brother Island is digitally manipulated and worked into a large panel on the third page which is an interesting touch. Where the art really excels is in the way in which it depicts the human characters. There are some neat panel layouts and angles used here but we get more out of the way that the people in the story are portrayed. Great attention to detail is paid to facial expressions and eye movements.
All in all, this story is off to a pretty strong start and is looking to be a worthy follow up to the movies that inspired it.
