Review by Ian Keogh
When originally introduced, Cassie was a spoiled rich brat, and something of the school bully, but Stephen McCranie has gradually been explaining her personality. She’s still not always likeable, but has thrown herself wholeheartedly into searching for the disappeared Amy. This has involved bending the law, and the outcome of events in Space Boy 19 is her arrest occupying the opening pages of this volume. However, aware of a cover-up she keeps her wits about her and has a back-up plan. It’s a delightful scene, with Scott very slow catching on to what’s happening.
The cover star this time is Sherman, willing, but dim junior police officer who knows Cassie from his position as the school policeman and feels protective. On the cover he’s seen wondering if he still wants to be part of the police, as he’s also aware there’s a cover-up going on.
Cassie’s story is an example of how far McCranie has come since the series started. Sequences such as Cassie’s meandered in early volumes, but there’s not a panel wasted in what occupies just under the first half of the book. It also exemplifies the feelings McCranie conveys via the art alone. It’s one hell of an emotional jumble, and everything is apparent from the way McCranie draws the cast’s faces.
The sample art doesn’t show that, though, but a page from Amy’s dream sequence. When she dreams she can have contact with a manipulative alien responsible for much of what’s happened during Space Boy. It’s a pivotal sequence, and not just for returning a character one might have assumed we’d not be seeing again. In one sense it’s frustrating as the Wanderer again drops hints about what Amy might become and their own intentions, but without clarifying anything. Despite the lack of concrete information, though, it’s a fascinating scene with an excellent coda. One item dropped seems to tie in with something revealed in Space Boy 21.
A few moments of joy are supplied, but in another volume with no sight of the Space Boy himself, an awful lot of people have regrets, and not just those we care for. It’s excellent, and it now seems McCranie’s wizardry is such that he’s able to focus on any member of a large cast and deliver something compelling.
