Coming back together after last year’s horror comic, “Memetic,” James Tynion IV and Eryk Donovan present a new scenario for the end of the world. “Cognetic” #1 features two hive minds duking it out for the fate of humanity. The two creators manage to generate great tension, but can they distinguish this story enough from the previous one, especially when “Cognetic” bears so many of the same hallmarks as “Memetic”?
Written by James Tynion IV
Illustrated by Eryk DonovanWhat’s to Love: The creative team behind the award-nominated Memetic are back with another apocalyptic tale! We obviously love working with James Tynion IV (see The Woods, UFOlogy, and the aforementioned Memetic), and we know partnering him once again with artist Eryk Donovan will lead to another great-looking story. In Cognetic, Tynion and Donovan offer a look at the fundamentally human desire for control-that deep-seated belief we all feel in our darkest moments that if we had total, absolute power, we would be able to create a perfect world.
What It Is: Every human believes that they are self-reliant, self-determined individuals, each set on their own course. They’ve built civilizations, they’ve built culture, they’ve built lives… But what if that isn’t the right track? What if there is a singular mind ready to take back control and finally right the destiny of mankind and build a better tomorrow? Cognetic is the story of a powerful psychic being that once controlled one-third of the world’s population as a part of its hivemind, and his return to humanity in modern-day New York City. It’s a psychic action thriller, precariously positioned on the edge of outright apocalypse. It’s also the story of a young woman, the assistant to the director of the FBI, who might be the only one who can save humanity, but at a terrible, terrible cost. Each issue in this miniseries is oversized with 48 pages!
In many ways, “Memetic” was a sort of rough draft for “Cognetic.” Both are chilling stories taking place throughout an apocalypse. Both explore how modern technology contributes, control, connects, and correlates all our relationships. Both feature an LGBT character at their center, who’s trying to navigate the chaos and pandemonium to make sure their loved ones are safe. Whereas “Memetic” was about people buying into a mass-produced image, “Cogentic” features a more auditory insidiousness.
Writer James Tynion IV and artist Eryk Donovan start generating tension from the very beginning, opening with a couple fishermen accidentally nabbing a dolphin in their nets. It warns them something terrible is about to happen before jumping back into the ocean. (The fact that Tynion is able to throw in a Douglas Adams reference without the book losing any momentum speaks highly of his rapidly developing plotting skills; “Talon” was such a long time ago.) The scene shifts to a bunch of people moving toward New York City, all of them getting possessed by the sort of eerie voice sprouting fanatical messages about humanity you see in the darkest and bleakest of thrillers. Shit starts to get real when the possessed people begin jumping off the Empire State Building.
Tynion and Donovan finally focus in on Annie, an assistant to the Director of the FBI, thrown into the middle of this new crisis.
The scope of this book is more localized: Tynion mostly has us spend time with Annie as she learns about the situation and reacts to it. Without a bigger cast of characters, it’s not necessary to have to constantly jump back and forth between events so we actually have time to start worrying about what’s going to happen to the people who come across the page.
The tension is more nerve-wracking here, with such tight plotting over the book’s 32 pages (with 6 pages of backup material about the making of the comic) that you’re caught in its grip from the beginning. A character twist at the end comes off as genuinely shocking, though the amount of questions it raises adds another level of intrigue about this book’s world that I’m not sure can be covered in three issues, even if they’re oversized. Tynion throws in plenty of gags and Easter Eggs (the kid reading Neuromancer on the bus) that have some satisfying payoffs by the end of this issue.
Continued belowFor his part, Eryk Donovan has pulled back on the grotesque images, trying to evoke tone, mood, and atmosphere by pulling back, letting the images sort of linger. A majority of the book is a crowd scene, with people clustered around the frame and constantly getting in each other’s way. When he does go for the more grotesque images, they feel more effective and frightening because so much of the rest of the book has been subdued and hinted at, but I think the best and most terrifying images are the after effects, the remains of the chaos.
I’m not sure if I was all about the light blue choice for the collective voice’s lettering. I understand that Tynion, Donovan, and letterer Steve Wands wanted to distinguish the hive mind character from the normal way the people were speaking, but I found myself squinting more often than not at the balloons.
Overall, “Cognetic” #1 is a nice start to a new apocalyptic thriller. James Tynion IV and Eryk Donovan’s collaborative relationship continues to grow stronger and what they’re able to accomplish together becomes more and more interesting. There’s a good done, some creepy atmosphere, and some taut tension going on here.
Final Verdict: 7.8 – it bears a lot of similarities to its predecessor, but “Cognetic” finds its own tense identity.
