Review: Mind MGMT Vol. 3: The Home Maker hardcover (Dark Horse Comics)

It wouldn't be Mind MGMT if the book wasn't a riddle wrapped in an enigma, and Matt Kindt's Mind MGMT Vol. 3: The Home Maker is no exception. Kindt starts the third volume considerably far from where the second volume ended and the pieces take a while to coalesce, but three volumes in we trust by now that there's always a method to Kindt's madness and a startling twist waiting at the end. Here again, Home Maker is no exception, with a four-page fold-out spread that can only be described as "operatic."

In truth, Home Maker forwards the overall Mind MGMT story only slightly, though I'd argue there are so many little details sprinkled throughout that even if Mind MGMT doesn't get "further" here, it certainly gets deeper. I've read Kindt describes this as Mind MGMT's halfway point, and if the book is a little quieter (up until said operatic ending), it closes protagonist Meru's arc from the first two books and cements the status quo for Mind MGMT's next act.

[Review contains spoilers]

Home Maker collects five issues, #13-17, comprising the "Home Maker" story, plus the one-off issue #18. To an extent most of the issues are self-contained (though linked), which contributes to the sense that the book catches its breath here even in the strong action sequences. The book opens with a purposefully-confusing look at the titular "Home Maker," followed by single-issue profiles of Meru, Henry Lyme, and the Eraser, and then the concluding issue and the "Zoo Keeper" profile. Though the middle three character profile issues weave in and out of the "Home Maker" storyline, they each mostly stand on their own, with the beginning and arc-ending issue #17 being the most connected.

The Meru and Lyme are the least effective chapters among an overall stellar book (like saying this corner of the Mona Lisa is my least favorite) if only because most of what they show us explicitly could already be intuited by sharp readers, and what revelations Kindt includes here are so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable. Meru's issue tells us the least (though don't think I missed that nosebleed Mr. Kindt, no sir). At the same time, I have noted before that I sometimes find it hard to empathize with Meru given how little the character knows herself, but I thought "Right in the boob" was an absurdly funny line in the midst of it all that helped humanize Meru considerably.

Ditto the Lyme issue, which I thought told us even less new information about the character (that I noticed). But here as well, Kindt's depiction of all the times Lyme brought Meru to him, told her his story, and then wiped her memory was incredibly affecting, both in the ways Lyme tried to tell the truth initially and then got further away from it with each instance, and also the gradual disintegration of Meru each visit. I need to re-read Volume 1 of Mind MGMT at some point to catch the subtleties I missed then and understood now; Mind MGMT has been optioned as a movie and I wonder if they would actually tell Vol. 1 as written, with the audience not finding out that Meru has done this before until the end, and then the "real" story starts in the sequel. It would be interesting to see the reaction of those "not in the know."

The Eraser's chapter, in contrast, tells us a lot we don't know about the character, and it's buffeted in true Mind MGMT style by the hypnotic sci-fi story that starts at the edges and then ultimately takes over the page (the visual crown jewel of the volume until it's trumped by the fold-out). It turns out, through a series of events both revealed and unrevealed, that new MGMT leader the Eraser is actually Julianne Verve (or is she?), subject of Meru's true crime book and supposed murderer of her own family. A bevy of questions are opened up here, given that it seems that Julianne did not have powers at the outset and that it was her husband who was hooked up with Mind MGMT, but somehow Julianne comes to take the fall for his murder and reemerges as the Eraser. Further, Lyme pushed Meru to write Julianne's story, and Duncan, the Futurist, freed her from death row (as shown in Volume 2). Are Lyme and Duncan responsible for the Eraser's threat -- and is the Eraser a threat at all?

Aside from watching all the "Home Maker"'s dominoes fall in issue #17, resulting in a suburb imploding, one of the moments that grabbed me the most in this volume was when Meru had to choose between the Eraser and Lyme. Kindt did actually make me doubt whether the Eraser was truly "bad" or if her supposed mission to take down the Russian MGMT equivalent (the book's other key contribution to the mythos) wasn't actually noble. For a moment I did root for Meru to go with the Eraser rather than Lyme, hoping Kindt might pull a Lost/Others/the-bad-guys-aren't-so-bad-type scenario, but it wasn't to be. That Meru sides with the forces that want to stop Mind MGMT instead of the forces who want to harness the super-powered chaos makes sense enough and cements Meru and Lyme's "team," though I think Kindt intends that the difference between the two groups is really negligible.

It's likely tough to follow the, again, operatic chaos of issue #17 (one can actually imagine an opera score playing under all of the carnage); issue #18 does this well enough, but it's clear it's got a hard act to follow. This issue profiles the young "Zoo Keeper" who can control and influence animals. Lyme makes some interesting appearances in flashback and one wonders if his care for the Zoo Keeper is influenced by his care for Meru or vice versa, or if all of this stems from some other relationship in Lyme's life. However, "Zoo Keeper" ultimately follows what becomes a maybe too-familiar Mind MGMT storyline in which a character develops powers, gets recruited by the group, has qualms about the work, and then in some way gets out (see Lyme, Dusty, Duncan). Kindt's use of Dick and Jane tropes here is amusing and the storybook narration along the side of the page is downright creepy, but one does get the sense they've read this issue before (and not because of partial mind-wiping).

But Mind MGMT Vol. 3: The Home Maker is, in total, remarkably clever, and the way in which the rogue Home Maker's plan ultimately comes together is something everyone should behold. With Mind MGMT's first book, I didn't really know what was going on, and with the second I "got it" retroactively; now with the third volume, Matt Kindt shows us the story Mind MGMT can really tell with (more of) its cards on the table, and I'm hooked once again. Only, after this book's giant gatefold, I wonder what Kindt will do for an encore.

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Review: Mind MGMT Vol. 2: The Futurist collected hardcover (Dark Horse Comics)

It happened a second time, of course.

In all, I enjoyed Mind MGMT Vol. 2: The Futurist more than I did the initial volume. While for most of the volume I still felt Meru lacked a certain quality to make the reader really care for her, I did like the offbeat "team" that emerges in these pages. Certainly writer Matt Kindt layers each page with characters with increasingly more unusual mental powers, and Kindt's exploration of these is fascinating -- what would it really be like if you could see the future? Control minds completely, other people's or even your own -- making the reader think in the way good science-fiction should.

As with Mind MGMT Vol. 1, however, there's a twist here, one that again caught me flatfooted and that recasts not just elements of this volume but of the first one as well. By the end of this book, every complaint I had about Mind MGMT has been answered, every aspect that seemed "off" to me now explained and fully integrated into the story.

Kindt knows just what he's doing here, no question, and with this volume's great cliffhanger, I'm now firmly along for the ride.

[Review contains spoilers]

Whereas the first volume of Mind MGMT spotlighted Meru mostly on her own -- in a vacuum that, in my opinion, distanced her from the reader -- this second volume allows Meru to interact with the book's burgeoning supporting cast. The beginnings of this were in the previous book -- Henry Lyme, of course, but also Perrier (though this time, it's the other Perrier), and the "futurist," Duncan. Meru imagines the four, plus the Musician, as a dysfunctional family, and it's that distinction that separates them from your average super-team; far from costumed do-gooders, Mind MGMT's "heroes" are all survivors (knowingly or not) of the Mind Management organization's implosion, and it's interesting to watch Meru try to conceptualize and find her place with them.

This book's true turning point, however, is the revelation that Meru is a former Mind Management agent with the ability to dampen powers, and that she had a relationship with Bill, another former agent now mind-wiped and working for the CIA. Indeed, Kindt surprised me entirely -- even when Ferris takes the pseudonym "Bill" I didn't get it, nor did I consider too strongly why the woman Bill is seeing is bald (what purpose, that is, Kindt would have for making her bald, which is to further prevent the reader from realizing this is Meru). It was not until the end of chapter 11, when Bill actually speaks Meru's name, that I finally understood. Lesson learned: every character and every element of this book must be examined much more carefully.

My chief complaint about Mind MGMT Vol. 1, the one element that I stated previously still stuck out to me, was why Meru trusted Bill so implicitly. Some of Meru taking her quest to find Lyme in stride stemmed from her having searched for Lyme previously (even if she couldn't remember doing so), but it seemed off to me that Meru should trust Bill so implicitly when he showed up at her door, when every movie and comic book cliche suggests Bill's sudden appearance would definitely make him a bad guy. Instead, we find once again that Kindt has it all under control, planning everything -- even what looks like a misstep -- from the beginning.

This volume still includes the Mind Management guide rules up the side of the page, but also for a good part of the book this is replaced by excerpts seemingly from Meru's book (though the exact authorship is a little fuzzy). My pet theory is that the woman mentioned in the book, who murdered her family and is last seen in prison, is actually the Eraser, whom Duncan frees from prison; the Eraser seems at this point to be the book's main villain, working to restart the Management organization. It remains a little problematic to keep having to pause every page to read the excerpt on the side, connect it back to the page before, and then continue; I'm not quite at the point where I'll read the main pages first and then start over and read the side-type second, but almost.

Futurist's cliffhanger grabbed me more than Manager's did with Meru forgetting Lyme and returning to her life. Now, Meru and Bill are on the run, having both escaped the Eraser and shrugged off Lyme's team. Both groups worry what will happen when Meru "picks a side." I'm reminded of the late, lamented Heroes here, where Peter's ability to mimic other people's powers made him one of the most dangerous characters even as he had no specific powers on his own. Meru is the same way, and her defection from Lyme's team makes their motives more questionable; I think we're entering a period of Mind MGMT where neither team is necessarily "good" or looking out for Meru's best interests. I'm curious to see that play out, with Meru battling both sides, as the series continues.

In my review of the Manager, I suggested that if a reader was going to read one chapter, they should stay for the whole book, because much is revealed about the whole story in the final pages. I'll modify that now to say that if you're curious about Mind MGMT, reserve judgment until you've read both Manager and Mind MGMT Vol. 2: The Futurist. The second volume clarifies and redeems the first; I wasn't sure about Matt Kindt's new series before, but volume two has made me a believer.

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Review: Mind MGMT Vol. 1: The Manager hardcover (Dark Horse Comics)

It's hard to say much that's specific about Matt Kindt's Mind MGMT Vol. 1: The Manager without spoiling the whole thing. It is in the conspiracy theory genre, owing its roots to shows like The X-Files (and certainly earlier than that) though perhaps stylistically having more in common with Lost (beyond simply Damon Lindelof's introduction). It has an element of meta-fiction to it, a la David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Mind MGMT, for another comparison, might be what Cameron Stewart's Sin Titulo (which I'll be reviewing soon) would have been if it were an ongoing series, or vice versa if Mind MGMT were a webcomic.

Mind MGMT requires more from the reader than I originally expected. A keen eye, for one, but mostly patience. The core of the book is a mystery, and that mystery does not unfold quickly. I understand Kindt conceptualized Mind MGMT as a book readers would want to read in monthly installments so as to be able to pore over and discuss the book's puzzles; for me, this would have been tough. While reading, I considered I might have dropped the series around the third issue; having finished, however, I'm keen to pick up the soon-to-be-released second volume. The message is, if you're going to read The Manager, commit to reading the whole thing before passing judgment.

Though the story is difficult, it's hard to beat a creator-owned book written and also drawn by that creator (ditto for Sin Titulo), and Kindt's sketched-out style is nicely different than anything else you'll find on the stands today.

[Review contains spoilers]

Many, though not all, of the concerns I had about Mind MGMT were solved by the book's conclusion. What exactly has Meru been doing with her life since her first bestseller? If she wasn't on Amnesia Flight 815, why does she seem so out of it? Why does she take for granted the existence of talking dolphins, or that Bill is a CIA agent working for her best interests? I'm still a little fuzzy on the Bill part, but the rest we get -- it's because Meru has done all of this before and so she's operating with a certain amount of deja vu, which the audience, at least at the outset, doesn't have the advantage of.

The payoff is sufficient for the reader's struggle, but reading the book is not without said struggle. Meru isn't a well-defined character -- we don't know her likes, dislikes, friends, etc. -- and at some point as she runs hither and yon across rooftops with Bill, trying to escape the Immortals, it's hard to care about Meru as a character beyond watching a good action scene. Additionally, of the six issues, almost a full two are given over to the origin of Mind Management agent Henry Lyme, such that Meru is less the protagonist than simply the vessel through which Kindt delivers the reader Lyme's story. Much of this, again, is cleared up by the end, but the overall effect causes Mind MGMT to lack the depth of Saga or Sin Titulo, though that's plenty good company to be in.

I even wonder, with no foreknowledge of what's coming up, whether Meru will remain this book's protagonist, or if Kindt will focus on another character in the next book. Having read some of Kindt's two-page profiles of other Mind Management agents, I can see there's plenty other stories to tell in this world (as Brian Vaughan sometimes turned the focus to characters other than Yorick and company in Y: The Last Man), and it would not surprise me if Kindt set Meru aside for a storyline or two, though I'd be equally glad to have her in the next book for the audience to learn more about her now that we have a clearer picture what's going on.

What makes Mind MGMT remarkable is what also makes books like Watchmen remarkable -- the sheer volumes of extraneous artifacts the author creates for telling the story. In the case of The Manager, this is mainly the Mind Management Field Guide rules that Kindt prints along the side of nearly every page, almost 120 of them in all. This certainly required a considerable amount of planning and plotting, as each rule ties tangentially to the action on the page. Though this is one of the things that "sold" me on Mind MGMT, I'm ready for Kindt to try a new "trick" in the next volume -- it was entertaining but at the same time sometimes distracting to have to read the side of the page every page, making ongoing scenes seem stilted.

The book is at its most effective, however, when the rules on the side of the page begin to morph into secret messages that speak directly to the reader. The reader becomes a character, as it were, holding this "found object" of the guide pages. It seems relatively clear in the book that when Meru writes about what she learned from Lyme and mails it to herself, she actually writes it, but art factors strongly in the book (the animal that everyone is drawing), so perhaps The Manager is meant to be Meru's ultimately-lost pages, or even perhaps her writing is being "translated" to images for the reader via some Mind Management technique. The idea of The Manager-as-hastily-scribbled-notes goes to explain the particular "sketched" look of Mind MGMT, too.

Perhaps, between Mind MGMT and Sin Titulo, this kind of paranoia-laced secret government agency tale is reaching market saturation; at the same time, I can't help but be sucked in. In its middle, Mind MGMT Vol. 1: The Manager doesn't offer as much detail as I'd like, but its final question -- how will Meru surmount the tricks of her own mind? -- is very enticing. I'll stick with this one for the next round.

Green Lantern reviews coming up later in the week. Don't miss it!

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