‘Heart Eyes’ #2 Offers A Dark Insight Into Backstory Of Our Oddball Protagonist
by Olly MacNamee
Summary
What started off as a story of puppy love set against a backdrop of death, decay and desperation has quickly turned into a nightmare for all but the young Lupe. A girl more at home with the monsters who have taken over the Earth than with her fellow humans. But then, she hasn’t been treated too well by many she has come into contact with in her short life.
Overall
8.5/10Young love often doesn’t last. Heart break, yes, but not your besotted being ripped apart by Lovecraftian monsters who feed on fear while you stand by watching. It’s certainly a rather dramatic and left-of-field opening after just one issue of getting to know the young but tragic Rico.
And so we get an issue devoted to turning back the clock and presenting us with Lupe’s backstory. A backstory of poverty, exploitation and detachment. In this past, and from a very young age, Heart Eyes’ young protagonist seems somewhat estranged from humanity as well as reality. Indeed as this issue progresses writer Dennis Hopeless offers up a character you are encouraged to feel sympathy for because of her situation, but one who seems cold emotionally at certain points in this unfolding story. She certainly has more than just skeletons in her closet, that’s for sure.
Víctor Ibáñez’s artwork is grounded in solid figure work that adds a certain realism to the otherwise fantastical and gory spectacle of a post-apocalyptic world brought about by oversized, slithering, sentient monsters; all protruding teeth and tentacles. Addison Duke’s subdued colours clearly delineate the past from the present in a set of sepia stained scenes that highlight Lupe’s life and oddball character.
Heart Eyes #2 is a somewhat wonderfully peculiar comic book that’s akin to Strange Things but if the Upside Down had won the war. But, with Lupe’s backstory now all filled in, it’ll be interesting to see where the next issue takes our little monster tamer and end-of-the-world teenage terror.
Heart Eyes #2 is out now from Vault Comics
