Never Stop Searching For That Happy Ending: Black Science #43 Reviewed
by Josh Davison
[*Mild Spoilers Ahead!]
Grant McKay has lost everything many times over, and he now has a world where he has it all back. Everything is perfect, but it’s under the control of Kadir. Grant can’t bear to be at the whims of Kadir, so Grant has thrown everything away to strike back at him. Grant has already killed Kadir’s wife, Chandra, and he’s now on the run with Sara, Pia, and Nate. Kadir’s security force is pursuing them. Kadir wants Grant alive, but Sara and the kids are disposable. While this mayhem and destruction happens around him, Grant thinks back on his 46th birthday party–the only truly perfect day left in his memory.
Black Science #43 brings this long-running Giant Generator and Image Comics series to its explosive conclusion. Grant could have had everything, but he couldn’t stand living in this sterile world ruled by Kadir. He couldn’t bear to owe Kadir his perfect life.
In the end, Black Science proves to be a tragedy. One man’s hubris, shortcomings, and resentments defining his travels across all realities, destroying them along the way, and dragging his family into it many times over.
There is blame to be placed upon Kadir for leaving Grant his memories over a petty grudge, but, in the end, it is Grant that couldn’t tolerate the sterile yet peaceful world of Kadir when doing so means he has a happy life with his family at last. That intolerance leads to the death and destruction of this final issue.
The ending is ambiguous, as it must be. You can’t have a story about the multiverse (or Eververse) and expect a clear-cut conclusion. Despite that ambiguity, the ending brings so much we’ve seen before. You know exactly where this is going.
Matteo Scalera leaves it all on the page in this issue. His art is more powerful and affecting than ever before, and it pushes this book well into the realm of downright brilliance. It looks fantastic, many of the scenes are heartbreaking, and every ounce of emotion invoked by Grant, Sara, Kadir, and the others is readable on their faces and in their body language. Moreno Dinisio’s color art is phenomenal too, and it brings the necessary atmosphere and explosiveness that this ending needs.
Black Science #43 is the dower yet somehow hopeful finale that this Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera series needed. While it’s far from satisfying, I must invoke the copout reviewer stereotype and say that it’s not supposed to be either. We are minute beings in an uncaring series of infinite realities, and no one gets their perfect ending as all endings are the same. It’s beautiful, it’s painful, and it gets a strong recommendation. Give this one a read.
Black Science #43 comes to us from writer Rick Remender, artist Matteo Scalera, color artist Moreno Dinisio, letterer Rus Wooton, cover artist Matteo Scalera with Moreno Dinisio, and variant cover artists Andrew Robinson and Matteo Scalera with Moreno Dinisio.
Final Score: 9.5/10
