‘Captain Zero: Into The Abyss: Part II’ Review

There are moments when you see someone’s work and just know that they are going to manifest greatness at every possible turn. An intrepid young creator crafts something that builds on existing work and leaps fearlessly toward the next level. Enter, Z Cher-Aime: creator, writer, director, and voice actor on the animated short film Captain Zero: Into The Abyss Part II. Who leaves nothing to your imagination and tells you outright, ‘Oh, I’m about to cook something fierce, strap in and stay tuned’ and then does it. Black nuance, context, and reference take the wheel in CZ2 and never let up. Let’s get into it. First and foremost, I couldn’t stop seeing Cher-Aime all over my Twitter timeline. For the last year or two, our algorithms would align because of some animation or comics discourse. As the production of CZ2 was ramping up and funding was needed, Cher-Aime made no bones about asking up front. There’s a stigma creators have developed around asking for funds, which is counterintuitive because we live in a deeply capitalist society. It was refreshing to see someone, a maker, be like, ‘Yo, give me money. I put everything into this project, and it’s dope AF’. Of course, they didn’t say it like that, but what drew me to their work was their constantly clever reuse of the Disney animated Robin Hood meme. You might know the one, an image of Robin in disguise as a beggar with a cup and sunglasses. I can’t even count how many times they used it to update folks on the funding progress,…