Into The Unbeing #3: The Maw

Into the Unbeing #3 begins with Selva, Galko, and Zara standing over the deep, dark shaft that gave the trio pause at the end of the previous issue. They descend, continuing to search for a way out. Hildur is still nowhere to be found. The shaft takes them to other caves that twist, and the environment grows more unusual with every inch.

Thompson embraces the weird and the disturbing in Into the Unbeing #3. The series’ first two issues rested a great deal on the characters’ curiosity. Their motivation shifts almost entirely here as they look for a way out of the “cave” by going down into it. The search seems counterproductive. The issue’s story isn’t difficult to follow but the characters’ actions read as confusing by design.  Their efforts to leave take them further and further down. At times the dialogue frames their determination to descend almost like a compulsion.

Psychological elements aren’t completely dropped in Into the Unbeing #3, though. Selva’s backstory continues to round the group out. While one character’s history has yet to be examined, it seems likely now that all four initial characters came to the environmental organization damaged and lacking any real commonalities. Even their passion for the cause is unequal. And distrust grows like a steady drip drip drip.

Most of what sells Into the Unbeing #3’s mood, though, is Sherman’s art. Thompson’s script doesn’t provide very much that’s definitive in the way of explicit information via dialogue or internal monologue. The issue opens with its characters repelling down what looks like a maw, complete with outcroppings that resemble teeth. It sets a definite tone for everything that follows.

Their journey through the rest of the issue starts to resemble a creature’s interior. Eventually it looks like the characters are moving past a set of lungs. And there is a sequence where the trio moves through a river of blood in what appear to be arteries. Without these visuals, the characters’ insistence that they continue descending in order to find a way out would be less ominous.

Non-standard layouts create a growing sense of claustrophobia. As the trio descend, several pages simulate, in a way, the characters’ journey. First, repelling down the shaft is represented in a series of panels shaped almost like a funnel with the round central panel at the bottom offering a look far down the long shaft. On a subsequent page, a central bulbous cylinder is flanked on either side by three small panels. Another page further into the issue is laid out almost like an hourglass but with a wide round space at the center as the trio transition from one space to another.

Campbell takes a couple opportunities to do something other than the series’ typical quiet seeming dialogue (small text in a much larger dialogue bubble full of empty white space). He embellishes two character screams. The first time is a standard oval dialogue bubble with bigger text and a thick red outline. The second scream, much later in the issue, uses bigger text with a spiky bubble. As a result of the very small text used for everything else, these practically explode off the page.