Review: ‘Hidden Springs’ #3 Has ‘Cocoon’ Vibes

Welcome to the table,

When I was a kid, entertainment was a bit different than it is now. Rather than having thousands of shows, movies, and clips on demand, the majority of the movies and shows I ended up having access to came from whatever was on the handful of basic channels the antenna on the television could pick up.

That made movies interrupted by commercials the norm. While westerns and romantic comedies seemed to be found in great supply, the only films without a ton of kissing or horses for a kid to enjoy tended to be Jaws, Star Trek, and a little science fiction flick by the name of Cocoon.

The basic vibe of Cocoon was that a bunch of old guys find a swimming pool that some aliens trying to hunt down resources from Atlantis have stored these little pods in. The pods provide a magical energy that gives the old guys youthful energy and makes for some enjoyable hijinks before the lesson of the movie, “Don’t use up all your resources and stop messing with weird stuff you find in pools, or you may kill ancient aliens who only want to get home and will totally help you if you ask,” pays off with a cool ending and a bunch of octogenarians heading into space for a new world they will never die on.

I bring up Cocoon because the more I read of Hidden Springs from Dark Horse, the more this thing feels like that classic movie from my youth.

Let’s get into it.

Written by Rob Williams, with art from Nil Vendrell, colors from Berta Sastre, and letters from Simon Bowland, Hidden Springs is a horror-comedy comic from Dark Horse that really leans into the nostalgia of 1980s science fiction storytelling and Kaiju-adjacent adventures.

The story picks up where the last issue left off, with a bunch of retired entertainment folks and what could possibly be … probably is … more than likely total is … a serial killer who is their friend, shepherding a baby Kaiju out of the woods and trying to get it back to the sea before it’s captured by the government and turned into a weapon of war.

While the team of ancient entertainment industry retirees is fleeing with a giant baby … yes, the oxymoron strikes me as unhinged, but that is exactly what this thing is. The Kaiju at the center of this story is a giant snail-squid-shelled-monster baby thing that can grow and shrink at will.

We are treated to more flashbacks fleshing out the story of some of the members of the crew and giving a more rounded look at the lives of people who would just say “yeah … let’s take this thing from point A to point B while being shot at by goons in helicopters.”

There is a beautiful thread of melancholy that wraps through this story, and it really shows itself in these flashbacks. I’m wrestling with a ton of existential dread in this season of my life, and this book has been fun but also something my mind reaches back to when the big thoughts of “how much time do we really have” and “am I doing what I should with my life” start to bubble up.

I think that a fantastical story like this being able to ground you emotionally really speaks to the power of the storyteller at the helm. I don’t normally advocate for something to get transformed into other media, but this would make a rad movie or limited series if they had the right director who understood the emotional impact of the storytelling in play.

There is some loss in this issue as well, but I don’t want to spoil that here for you here. I will say, on the subject it feels honest and authentic in the moment as it plays out and continues to really make the book feel equal parts fantastical and really grounded in an emotional place where it hits kind of hard.

My editor and long-time friend Brendan texted me earlier this week something to the tune of “we are all getting older.” This book in a ton of ways is exactly that feeling but printed on the paneled page. We live in this weird world full of monsters and heroes, comics and cartoons, and yet, every day it feels like we are all getting older, and older, and older … and this book somehow elevates that.

I think the more important part, though, much like having B’ on the other end of the digital line, is that we are not getting older alone; we have someone there, maybe a handful of someones, who would go on this kind of unhinged adventure with us just because we were on it. That feeling, that you are not alone as the twilight comes, that is where Hidden Springs really shines.

Until next time, be sure to text your friends. I can’t tell you how much a handful of memes in my inbox when I wake up has helped me over the last month or so.