CAGE! #2 Spoilers: Nobody Cages CAGE!!

[CraigTheCylon]

Because I don't quite know what I just read. That's the CAGE! experience.

Synopsis:
spoilers:

After being KO'd from behind at the close of #1, Luke awakens stuck in a box. A wooden box. That holds him about as long as you'd think. Luke is then immediately confronted by a pair of "real cats" - anthropomorphized animals in nice suits and hats, one a tiger and one a lion. Luke jumps overboard - because as well as being in a box, he was also on a boat - and dives into the sea to escape, but the cats give chase. When Luke surfaces, he's on a tropical jungle island. A snake tries to bite him but he sorts it out. The cats are less easy to dissuade and a long footchase ensues. Twice. Luke arrives in a sun-kissed glade of strange flowers. He sniffs one and they spray pollen on him, making him faint into the water. 5 pages of hard-to-describe trippy weirdness follow. Then the scarecrow, the tinman and the cowardly lion - all resembling Luke - show up on a yellow brick road and agree to follow a Dorothy that looks like Misty Knight. The real Misty - or something very like her - rouses Cage from his addled thoughts, leaving him sat naked on a large flower surrounded by fairies that look like him. And then a spaghetti-haired wolf man welcomes Luke to 'the stage'. To be continued.

end of spoilers

Initial Thoughts:
- *throws up hands helplessly*
- I give up. I give up! F*** is going on with CAGE!!?
- Of course, despite not understanding this issue of CAGE!!!, I'm still enjoying the series. It's decidedly a peculiar book and the appeal will be lost on you if you're not open to both Genndy Tartakovsky's art stylings AND a very throwback vision of blaxploitation. But for the, I don't know, 5 or so people in the world who share my precise views, CAGE!!!! is fun.
- No idea if the 'cats' are existing characters or not. I mean, CAGE!!!!! used to fight a fish guy on the reg, so why not? It is striking how much they look like they stepped out of a '60s Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
- That the tinman version of CAGE!!!!!! has a metal afro with a steam/oil funnel stuck out at a jaunty angle, like a comb would be in a real afro, is my favourite in-joke of CAGE!!!!!!! #2. I laughed far too much at that. I'm not proud.
- Tartakovsky really knows how to draw a guy running out of breath.
- Also here is a picture of CAGE!!!!!!!! punching a snake so hard its eyes pop out:



Feel free to chime in with your thoughts. Maybe we can solve the mystery of CAGE!!!!!!!!! together.

[Michael Watkins]

this is not the way to capitalize on his Netflix series.