Title: Clone Second Generation
Author: David Schulner, Aaron Ginsburg, and Wade McIntyre
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: WORTHY!
Art work: Juan José Ryp.
Colors: Andy Troy (no reliable website found)
Luke is now at the secret underground (literally) clone base, but he's understandably obsessed with finding his wife Amelia and child Eva, who have been abducted by elements in the government who are themselves obsessed with wiping out every member of generation one of the cloned Luke, and so have no regard for the life and welfare of his family - except, of course for the scientific interest the child might hold.
This novel opens with Luke trying to escape. He's prevented from doing so but he convinces his clone family that he must find his wife. At an arranged meeting at a truck stop, with a scientist who knows where Amelia is, Luke instead meets an evil clone named Patrick, who is slowly killing off every one of Luke's siblings. The clone passes himself off as a victim, desperate to find sanctuary from the purge, and like an idiot, Luke blabs everything about the secret underground location to him.
Meanwhile, the vice president and his daughter are both taken there, his daughter having been rescued by the indomitable Jennifer. That's unfortunate, because after Luke stupidly revealed where the base was, it immediately came under attack and scores of the clones were killed. Luke helps to overcome the attack, and most of the clones along with the VP and his daughter, escape. They retreat to the VP's country residence, which is a profoundly stupid thing to do. It's not like no one knows where that is!
Luke, Jennifer, and Sanah leave to track down Amelia and Eva. A new clone, this one named Eric, who is tattooed up the wazoo (I'm guessing, given how pervasively his entire body is covered!) comes down on Amelia's side and helps her escape the facility. He is attracted to Amelia the same way Luke was, but Amelia, not being a clone, isn't attracted to him in the same way. She does kiss him in gratitude for his help.
Again the art work was fine, but artist Ryp quite clearly has no idea what a woman looks like post-partum. Women are not weak and helpless (well, a few are, just like a few guys are, but in general women are pretty darned tough and recover well after pregnancy, even difficult ones), but Amelia's "recovery' here is simply not realistic.
A woman's ability to bounce back after delivery doesn't mean she isn't debilitated or weakened to one extent or another by the ordeal she's more than likely been through. It can be a real work out, and even the easiest of deliveries is accompanied by certain physical states which do not miraculously disappear overnight as Amelia's evidently did according to Ryp's art work!
Her large pregnant belly has magically gone - there's no "jelly-belly" which in any ordinary woman takes time to disappear, and which in some women never does really vanish completely. There are other physical facts, too, as other reviewers have pointed out: lactation is in full swing (although this varies from one women to another), and there is post-delivery vaginal discharge for which pads are needed.
No matter how strong a woman is or how easy the delivery may have been, she still needs time to recover and time for her body to return to something akin to her pre-pregnancy state, yet Ryp depicts Amelia as being quite literally no different in physical appearance or stamina immediately post-partum than she was before she became pregnant! It's not at all realistic.
What's also not realistic is Roy's horniness for Amelia. Yeah, guys like that have few qualms about using helpless women, but the way Roy is presented I got the feeling that he was the kind of spineless loser who wouldn't actually want to have anything to do with a woman, sexually or otherwise, who had just given birth. Despite this he's all over Amelia like she's a nymphomaniacal swimsuit model (which is how Ryp inappropriately depicts her - the swimsuit part at least). It just didn't strike me as realistic at all.
We also got Navajo medicine tossed into the mix as we met both Luke's dad and later, his mom, who is evidently a Navajo healer. While I acknowledge that there is medicine to be found in herbs and other plants, and I acknowledge that what we consider to be primitive peoples might well have had a handle on some of this through history, none of them were scientists or medical doctors, so I take all this new age and native medicine stuff with a large pinch of salt. Since we spent little time with this however, it was not a killer for me. It was actually nice to see that part of Luke's life. Not that he really knew anything about it!
One thing which bothered me was Patrick's readiness to slaughter his siblings. This was never accounted for to my satisfaction. We're told he was bred to have no feelings, but this is nonsensical. Even if we take that at face value, however, this still doesn't constitute a motive for his dedication to wiping out the other clones.
Those caveats on the table, I did still enjoy this novel, and I considered it a worthy read. I'm looking forward to volume three.
