Vicarious #5 – For all the Marbles!

The final gamble is here! Vicarious #5 by Ryan Parrot, Eleonora Carlini, Mattia Iacono, Luca Mattioni and Beca Carey from BOOM! Studios

Previously in Vicarios

Previously, Justin barely recovered from a near death experience thanks to Christian, a fellow proxy. After that, Sylvia followed through on her warnings to Justin and dropped him from her proxy agency. Now, Justin was alone. Without Sylvia’s top paying customers, Justin was in need of new clients. However, this was no easy task since Sylvia had also blacklised Justin. No allies, no friends, no agent and no clients. Plus, there was also the problem of the dead roomate. Add to all of that, the police was keeping tabs on Justin via Detective Nance.

Nowhere to Turn

Our leading character, returned back home. Not the apartment he’d been living in it. But an actual mansion of a home. Turned out, Justin comes from a wealthy family. In fact, his father was in politics. A councilman currently running for the Governor’s office. Although, Justin seemed welcomed with opened arms by his mother, his father didn’t share the same sentiment. With his back agaisnt the wall, Justin decided to come clean.

Blackmail to Murder

When Justin ran away from his family, he found himself in San Francisco. Eventually he ended making freinds with a man named Justin. Unfortunately, in a moment of inebriation he told his new friend all about his family. That turned out to be an unwise. Because the opportunity was there, his roomate resorted to blackmail. Until, Justin had enough and he ended up murdering his roomate. That is the story of that dead body we saw in issue #1. That was the real Justin. The lead’s actual name is Micah Lydecker.

Micah had a Plan

After confessing all of his sins to his father, Micah decided to bet on himself. It wasn’t for escape or refuge that Micah came home. On the contrary, Micah only returned so he could borrow money from his father. You see? Micah wanted to get back at Christian and eventually at Sylvia. Long story short, the plan worked. At least the part of getting the money for the inplant and using it to get back at Christian. Now all that was left was to go after Sylvia. For that, Micach would need some outside help.

*SPOILERS FOR ISSUE #5*

Unholy Alliances

First, for Micah’s plan to work, he would need the assistance of Detective Nance. But instead of asking for help, Micha asked for a favor. To back off from surveiling Sylvia or Micah so he could approach her without alerting her of any police presence. Although this was an uncommon request, Detective Nance accepted it. Because the trail of bodies ad victims left behind by Sylvia and her agency was already too much to bear. If Micah’s plan had a chance at bringing Sylvia down, Detective Micah was willing to let it play out.

Mrs.X’s Blessing

Secondly, Micah’s plan required winning the trust of Sylvia. Again, he proposed to step in and help with Christian’s clientele. However, that was not going to be easy. According to Sylvia, Christian used to be Mrs. X’s favorite proxy. In order for Micha to earn Christian’s spot, he would need the approval of Mrs. X. In short, while Sylvia is the face of the Proxy Agency, Mrs. X is the authority behind the scenes. Unfortunately for Micah, Mrs. X doesn’t grant her approval base on Sylvia’s recommendation. Micah would have to meet Mrs. X through a linking session and earn her trust.

Hardjacked

Following careful consideration, Mrs. X agreed to meet Micah through a link session. This was more than just an interview for a job, Mrs. X Hardjacked Micah’s implant. While a regular linking session allows the lnker to experience the proxy’s senses. Hardjacking a proxy’s inplant grants the linker total control of the proxy. Thus, Micah was at the mercy of Mrs. X. At that very moment, Micah revealed his true intentions by exposing the true about Sylvia’s agency to to Mrs. X.

How about the Art?

Even though the story took several unexpected twists and turns, the main course in this issue is the art. While Hardjacking implants already sounded liek a dreadful experience, the way is depicted by the artists made it even more horrofic. Micah’s experience is straight out of 1960’s psychedelic art. With warped and colorful images that make no sense or reason. But ultimately allows the reader to feel what Micah went though.

Overal Score: 9/10

Regardless of my personal expectations on the premise of this world, this is a compelling story. Whether it reached it’s full potential for telling many stories or not, this was quite the roller coaster. Following one single leading character we went from Justin, to Anon to Micah in the story of a morally bankrupt individual. In the end I found myself rooting for Micha’s success. Although you can make the argument that he was the bad guy fromk the begining. But there’s so much going on that you tend to forget whos right and who’s wrong. The fact that Ryan Parrot constructed a world where good and evil are irrelevant, goes to show that everyone’s story matters.

Let me know in the comments what you thought of Vicarious!