Mind Mgmt: New & Improved #5 Review

 

Mind Mgmt: New & Improved #5 Review

Writer, Artist, Colorist & Letterer: Matt Kindt

Cover Artists: Matt Kindt & Mike del Mundo

Editors: Sierra Hahn & Joelena Despard

Designer: Winston Gambro

Production: Melanie Ujimori

Flux House Production: Ella Kindt

Publisher: Oni Press

Issue Description: 32 Pages, Full Color

Price: $4.99 US

Release Date: November 4, 2026

 

The future has never looked bleaker. Every day brings new opportunities for society to go off the rails. To stave off Humanity’s extinction, Mind Mgmt agents work to prevent bad actors from igniting the spark that will detonate the world.

 

The secret government agency trained Jon Swon to see with his nose. By mixing custom scents, he can focus witnesses’ memories or pacify criminals. His partner, Gemini Delphi, has mastered the world’s most lethal martial arts. Yet she’d rather employ her abilities to calm suspects. After arresting the world’s luckiest assassin, what case will the existential detectives tackle next? And why doesn’t Jon’s boss want him to remember more of his past? Let’s leap into Mind Mgmt: New & Improved #5 and see!

 

Story

The Mind Mgmt Agency used to train its agents to work in pairs. By organizing agents into small cells, the leaders believed they could insulate their organization against corruption. But after a shakeup, one woman runs the government agency. Eraser tests her people until they break. She mixes truth with lies until they crack. Then she congratulates herself on finding weaknesses in her organization.

 

As Mind Mgmt: New & Improved #5, another agent seeks to escape from Eraser's manipulation. He tells a police detective about his experiences. Under questioning, the man repeats his story and explains how his superiors controlled him. He wonders what happened to the other agents he trained with.

 

After apprehending Ayush, Jon Swon and Gemini Delphi began another investigation. But rather than picking up where the previous issue left off, Matt Kindt rewinds the clock to reveal how and why their quarry went missing. The story follows different characters as Gemini Delphi's mission statement changes.

 

Once again, Jon and Gemini's lives circle back to their boss's insatiable need to test her agents. The world may constantly perch on the edge of disaster. Yet, like the Duplo Brothers' Sleep Deep podcast, the truth is whatever Eraser needs to manipulate her agents in Mind Mgmt: New & Improved #5.

 

Art

Like literature's greatest consulting detective, when Jon tried to remember elusive facts, smoking multiple cigarettes aided his cognitive abilities. Now, the man in the interview room smokes multiple cigarettes simultaneously. Outside the room, a police officer at a desk watches rows of monitors as a man walks behind him. Taking a seat, the visitor watches over the officer’s shoulder. He recreates what he sees inside pre-drawn panel outlines. When the artist leaves the police station, a blond man with hunched shoulders follows. A lightbulb becomes a symbol of enlightenment, while layers of secreted equipment reveal the science of perception.

 

A blue tint covers the questioning as cigarette smoke surrounds the frightened agent’s head like a calming collar. Pink accompanies the people privy to secret knowledge who prevent the world from falling apart. The man with hunched shoulders wears a yellow jacket, but the moisture trickling down his face isn’t from a recent storm. Most of the watercolors on the white and tan pages follow the agency’s reporting format. One black-outlined page, adorned with another medium, reveals scenes from a non-agent's perspective. Yet blue and pink converge in a location that bridges a frightened man's past and future in Mind Mgmt: New & Improved #5.

 

The frightened agent’s confession fills white boxes with typed letters. Dialogue appears in white, beige, and blue-tinged balloons. Off-camera dialogue and characters’ thoughts fill colored and black narrative boxes. Yet despite all the action and violence in a seemingly tranquil city, sound effects accompany a book that captures what paper, cameras, and microphones never can. Thanks to Oni Press and Superfan Promotions for providing a review copy.

 

Final Thoughts

While Jon Swon helps Gemini Delphi search for another rogue agent, he sees more examples of Eraser’s mismanagement. The Human costs of training agents may seem unnecessary to Jon. But as the government agency charged with maintaining world peace goes to war against itself, Jon glimpses more memories Eraser doesn’t want him to remember in Mind Mgmt: New & Improved #5.

 

Rating 9/10

 

For all the collectible covers see Mind Mgmt: New & Improved #5 Cover Preview. 

 

For how Agent Ayush killed an Immortal, see Mind Mgmt: New & Improved #4 Review. 

For how Agents Swon and Delphi escape a death cult in Arizona, see Mind Mgmt: New & Improved #3 Review.