Midas Flesh, vol. 2 picks right up with chapter five with no explanation of what occurred previously, so it’s a little unclear what is going on. Reading the blurb on the back, we learn that “Joey and her space crew have found King Midas’s body and turned it into the most powerful weapon of all time.”
Okay. Back to our comic.
Volume 2 opens with three people arguing about the morality of using Midas’s flesh in war. It becomes apparent that something called The Federation is in control and the people in this scene want to fight against it. But is it any better for them to use the flesh than for the Federation to use it? If they don’t, how will they ever prevail against the Federation?
Eventually it becomes clearer that the people arguing are Joey, Fatima, and Cooper (who is a dinosaur!), a trio who have taken a spaceship to discover the secret of a quarantined planet. What they discovered was the original King Midas, of the golden touch myth. And it’s all true. Midas’ touch, really any part of him, instantly turns what he touches (and what it touches and what it touches), to gold, in a cascading effect. When Midas gained the magic touch, he instantly turned the entire planet, down to a molecular level, to gold. Joey and the crew have figured out how to keep Midas’s body in stasis so it doesn’t touch anything, and have taken it with them as they try to escape the pursuing Federation ships.
The plot seems unresolvable. And then the deus ex machina is introduced. The once unsolvable problem is quickly solved. The blurb on the back of the book may call it, “an ending you never see coming,” but I call it a writer who wrote themselves into a corner and couldn’t figure out how to get out of it.
The art is functional. There is no new ground being broken here, but it works to tell the story. The muted colors convey the depths of space. The characters are distinct and easy to tell apart. I did love a vision of the future with multicultural characters and smart dinosaurs in it. The gold fingerprints on the cover were a particularly clever touch. Perfect for 8 – 12 year olds, especially where the first volume is popular.
MIdas Flesh, vol. 2
by Ryan North
Art by Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb
ISBN: 9781608867271
Boom! Studios, 2015
Publisher Age Rating: 8-12
