Morning Star from Mad Cave Studios gives readers an empathetic look at a family dealing with loss. Nothing about it is sturdy and sometimes the only thing keeping anybody going is a memory or a fantasy. So what happens when a getaway to say goodbye turns into something else?
Morning Star Needs U
Nathan Garrett was a man with a lot of heart and care, ready to help anyone in danger. Part of that was how his old military squad mate got them out of WWII. Even if that current co-worker is having doubts of surviving a wildfire. It shows that Nate has faith in a memory’s ability to inspire him to push forward. So when a photograph of his family flies out of his and burns to ashes, it sells how Nate is stuck living a tragedy in the moment.
Now all that Nate’s family have left of him is his memory, with Nate’s urn not even having his ashes. But unlike Nate, they’re all stuck living in his loss. The mother and daughter have no plans on leaving Montana despite the grandmother’s insistence. She and the aunt want to help them get through the loss, despite how badly they’re handling it. Which considering the son Charlie invented reality shifting, maybe they’re onto something.
…It’s the fifties, who knows how far back this practice goes.
Mourning Star: That’s Better
Anyway, the Garrett family want to say goodbye to Nate to get their lives back on track. They still have a solid family dynamic despite Nate not being there. Marabeth can understand what her brother’s saying despite Charlie not speaking out loud. Meanwhile Jolene tries her best to be the family’s lynchpin despite struggling with her sister and mother. Even without his ashes, following Nate’s example should be enough to push forward right? I mean the journey to a camp site to throw what’s in Nate’s urn away was granted to them by a ranger friend of Nate’s.
Well it looks like whatever got Nate is now after his family as the vulnerable Charlie is the first to encounter it. The way Jolene and Marabeth deal with these entities is juxtaposed with their memory of Nate. Jolene is trying to hold onto what she’s got left, violently lashing at these entities. With how these beings seem to communicate with Jolene and Marabeth with glitched memories, reality feels like its falling apart. At least Marabeth keeps the memory of her father alive by living out the important lessons he gave her to solve their problem.
Experience The 50s
Marco Finnegan’s simpler artwork evokes 1950s comics best seen through Charlie. The bizarre science fiction characters he sees live in a world of levity. For a kid going through a dead parent, seeing a giant robot on a pee break feels more important than saying goodbye to his father. So when he sees a rocket man who looks like his dad glitch up, readers can only imagine what’s going through Charlie’s mind.
The coloring by Jason Wordie demonstrates these shifting contrasts by showing a real world town with dull oranges and browns. Meanwhile Charlie’s fantasies are a bright green-yellow much like the light shining from his flashlight when reading comic books. When Charlie confronts the space man wearing a suit with the same green-yellow colors, it feels out of place. Once it glitches up, the suit is mostly covered in shadows, breaking whatever illusion was there.
Or maybe that was the sudden change in lettering by Justin Birch. The word balloons look perfectly normal in one panel. By the next one, both the balloon and font start to crumple like it’s just static.
Grief vs. Cosmic Horror
Maybe the strongest effect comes in how these glitching entities show themselves. The effects of how they communicate are utterly alien to the Garrett family. Like when they use the Garrett’s memories and thoughts to get their attention or manifest forms to talk with. It feels uncanny, especially with a deer man. The way these beings talk almost sound like they want the Garrett’s to join a cult. Readers feel for Jolene getting frustrated as she swings an axe at these echoes. While noticing how similar to the dust from Nate’s urn they are as they dissolve. It gives the idea that maybe these beings aren’t a threat, so much as out of their element.
Morning Star: Until The Next Sunrise
Morning Star is full of experiences where you want to give a friend going through tough times a hug. Like how a memory isn’t just nostalgia bait, it’s an inspiration to connect with the world around you. It’s full of scary and depressing things you want to escape from. But when memories start to twist because of an outside presence, the journey to let it go is universal. So for now this series gets 8.5/10.
Thanks for coming to the end and as always, remember to look between the panels.