Written by Mark Millar
Drawn by Matteo Buffagni
Published by Image Comics
PREVIOUSLY: Prodigy: The Icarus Society #1
While the first issue was mostly set up in terms of showing us what Edison’s been up to since the events of the first series and reminding us that he’s just as brilliant as ever, this issue feels like a set-up showing us how smart his enemies are.
It begins with Edison successfully breaking Professor Tong out of prison, alongside Tong’s henchwoman Prisha Patil. They then take him to Tong’s secret headquarters, some kind of high-tech base in the middle of the ocean, where Tong explains the stakes. Tong says he’s part of a secret informal group called The Icarus Society, they are 28 people who are the richest and smartest people in the world, all even smarter than Edison, according to Tong. But they’re so smart, and rich, that they’ve become detached from society, they all remain anonymous. Basically, they’re the real power in the world, with people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos being merely their “little Silicon Valley frontmen.”
This fits with a common trope in Mark Millar’s work, he loves portraying secret Illuminati-ish groups, going back to the shape-shifting aliens in The Ultimates to even the ancient cabal behind the invasion in the first Prodigy miniseries.
Millar also ties into a real-world conspiracy with a 1976 expedition to The Tayos Caves in Ecuador, led by Neil Armstrong to find evidence of an ancient advanced civilization. This comic maintains that they did find this evidence, in the form of 18 solid gold books detailing the secrets of Atlantis, including proof that the descendants of the Atlanteans are still active today. This was all covered up by the world governments, of course. Tong has 9 of them, and another member of the society has the others. Tong tasks Edison with stealing them for him. We’re then briefly introduced to this other person, as Edison arrives at his secret base.
And that’s pretty much it. So again not much happens, but the info revealed in this issue is intriguing enough, still leaving the reader wanting to know more. I enjoyed it enough, but do hope that the action picks up a bit in the next issue. No complaints about Matteo Buffangni’s artwork, though.
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