Mind MGMT, Vol. 2: The Futurist by Matt Kindt

Sometimes I read too slowly. I got to the first volume of Matt Kindt's Mind MGMT series back in 2014 -- already late, since it's a six-book series that ran and was collected 2012-15 -- and have had the second one on my shelf most of the days since then. At this rate, I calculate, I'll get through the whole series by 2029.

Well, maybe I can speed up -- only take two years between some of the books -- and save a little time.

In any case, here's the second one: Mind MGMT, Vol. 2: The Futurist. There is one shocking surprise near the end of this volume that anyone who's read comics anytime in the past fifty years will have seen coming miles away, but otherwise it's the same heady, intriguing mix of paranoia, Phildickian reality-twisting, and secret-society intrigue as the first book. The story is opening out here, and we learn more about Mind Management and its agents, though still, oddly, it's never 100% clear that this was an actual government agency run by the USA or not.

The core is still Maru, true-crime writer on the trail of the biggest story of her life, and Harry Lyme, the most powerful agent (according to him) of the now-defunct Mind Management agency, which changed minds and people and politics all around the world for decades through super-secret methods. (Basically psionics, without ever actually using the term -- all various kinds of mind powers.)

There's not much more I can say about this book without either spoiling the first book or repeating what I already wrote about that book. So let me just say that Kindt is probably the best creator in comics on spycraft, dark mysteries, and dangerous secrets -- and I find his spiky, watercolor-washed, slightly rough-looking art to be a perfect match for his writing. (Some people find his art too far from the slick superhero norm: those people are called Philistines.)

The series is done now: I can't promise it's all this good, since (as I said) I haven't read it all yet. But it does start very strong, and Kindt's work hasn't disappointed yet.