Guess who’s the star of this issue? Go ahead, guess? If you
said Jun you're wrong, but it's okay you haven’t read the issue yet. Issue 9
continues the trend of being about one of the main characters from the story.
The first issue in the arc was about Zoe, then Hunter and now the infamous Jun…
and his twin brother Hisao!
The book starts with reshowing us the events from issue two
or three when Jun tries to escape the compound only to be stopped by Hisao at
gunpoint. Old news, right? Well the book goes on to show us the teens when
they were just young boys. The school that they now both go to comes to pick them up and
take them away from their mother freely. The two representatives for the school
are none other than Miss Daramount and Mr. Gibbs. Things are going smoothly
until Jun’s mother mentions that he was actually born on May 5 and not the 4th
as his birth certificate states. Gibbs and Daramount exchange glances and then
inform her that they can no longer take Jun, but tell her a lie as to why.
This issue does the most to move the mystery forward and
actually makes Jun into a character instead of the emotionless single-minded being he’s been portrayed as from the start of the series. Although after
you see his life you’ll be able to understand why he is that way. We also see
our mystery man Abraham return once again in this issue. I’m assuming we’ll get
to see him one more time at least, but he’s only interesting for so long so
hopefully they explain him sooner rather than later.
The story was definitely more interesting in this issue and
Nick Spencer tries to add some real emotion to the book. Unfortunately that
turns out to be a hallow attempt since the book has been devoid of real emotion
for so long that it just doesn’t work with the story any more. In fact
it’s a bit ridiculous for Spencer to ask the audience to feel anything for the
characters after showing so much senseless death in every issue.
This is the only issue that I really didn’t care for the artwork. Not only does it have recycled pages from a previous issue, but it seems
very rushed and comes across more like filler than anything else. Joe Esima
might be part of the reason the emotions in the story doesn’t work out since the
scene is very awkward and a full page on top of that. If it had been just a
scene snuck in quickly before moving on it might have worked better and been believable. I can’t take too much away from the art other than the flat
backgrounds and the house that doesn’t look like anyone really lived in it. The
issue is dedicated to Dr. Jose Esima who we can assume is Joe’s father and it
was very nice of them to dedicate a page to him in the comic. Not something you
see a lot of in comics without a huge editorial to follow it.
I enjoy Morning
Glories, but there is just something about this book that rubs me the wrong
way and I think it boils down to Nick Spencer. I just don’t know if his stories
are genuine or if he’s figured out a formula with Morning Glories that people like. I guess I just don’t see the
heart in the story that you normally do with a creator-owned project and that
makes this series come off more like a shallow corporation produced it rather
than three guys and an Image imprint. Regardless of that fact the book is good
enough to stick with for at least a bit longer so that more of the mystery can
be revealed.
Overall Score – 8.0/10
For more info on Morning Glories check out the following:
Morning Glories: Best New Series or Biggest Fraud (a look at
the first five issues of the series)
Morning Glories #7 Review
Morning Glories #8 Review