If you thought David Pepose and Jonathan Lau were going to play it safe with this series, Space Ghost Vol. 2 #7 is here to prove you wrong. This issue takes the gritty Hanna-Barbera reboot and shifts it from corporate espionage straight into full-blown cosmic horror. It’s a total narrative gut-punch that moves the story away from standard superhero stuff and into some dark, psychological territory that feels modern and actually pretty scary.
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A Legacy Under Fire
The issue kicks off with what should’ve been a massive win: Doctor Henry Contra (Jan and Jace’s grandpa) unveiling the new Antimatter Generator at Contra Industries Tower. It’s your classic sci-fi beacon of hope for clean energy, but the corporate world is never that simple.
Enter Doctor Cyclo, a rival who clearly can’t handle the competition, who uses a mole to stage a hostile takeover with his robotic Cyclopeds. This leads to a chaotic, beautifully rendered action sequence where the whole crew leaps into the fray. I love seeing Blip in action, space blaster in hand and all; it amuses me to no end.
Pepose does an excellent job of showing us the family dynamic here. Jan and Jace aren’t just sidekicks; they’re terrified kids worried about their grandfather, while Space Ghost remains the stalwart, though slightly distant, protector.
The Birth of the Antimatter Man
The real hook and the moment where everything changes is when the containment field fails. In the middle of the struggle, the generator is breached, and Doctor Contra is caught right in the blast. He seems to survive at first, recovering at St. Lowe’s Hospital, but something is deeply wrong.
Pepose leans into that classic Jekyll-and-Hyde trope but gives it a terrifying cosmic spin. Watching the kindly Grandpa Contra suddenly snap and scream at his grandkids is a shock to the kids and the reader. The revelation that he’s become a living weapon is handled with a chilling feeling that this was bound to happen. When he tracks down and kills Doctor Cyclo (literally burning him alive from the inside out), it’s a point of no return for the villain.
The Visuals: Lau, Dalhouse, and Esposito
Jonathan Lau’s art is kinetic as ever. He’s great at the big Galactic Federation scale, but he’s even better at the small stuff, like the look on a character’s face. The contrast between the soft, kindly Doctor Contra we see at the start and the jagged, glowing Antimatter Man at the end is striking.
Andrew Dalhouse’s colors are the secret sauce here. He uses this vibrant, almost neon palette for the energy effects that make the antimatter feel genuinely dangerous. Meanwhile, Taylor Esposito’s lettering helps set the tone, making mechanical bubbles for the Cyclopeds feel cold, while the distorted, black-and-white bubbles for the Antimatter Man make him sound like something cosmic and irreversible.
Final Verdict
Space Ghost Vol. 2 #7 continues the masterclass in modernizing a classic property without losing its soul. David Pepose and Jonathan Lau have taken a 60s icon and dropped him into a nightmare that feels earned and genuinely gripping. It’s dark, it’s risky, and it’s easily one of the most exciting books on the stands right now. If you came for the nostalgia, you’ll stay for the absolute chaos.
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‘Space Ghost Vol. 2’ #7 Review: When a Beacon of Light Becomes an Infinite Void
Space Ghost Vol. 2 #7 continues the masterclass in modernizing a classic property without losing its soul. David Pepose and Jonathan Lau have taken a 60s icon and dropped him into a nightmare that feels earned and genuinely gripping. It’s dark, it’s risky, and it’s easily one of the most exciting books on the stands right now. If you came for the nostalgia, you’ll stay for the absolute chaos.
