It has been a long time since the previous issue of this series. By a long time I mean last summer. Worse than just having been delayed, the series really hadn’t yet established what it was about and what its purpose would be. That makes this an issue with a large burden to bear while trying to get people back on board.




Unfortunately, from a script stand point, this issue is a bit of a mess. The story is pretty straight forward but for some reason the script adds completely unnecessary and confusing narration captions over just about every panel. It takes a while to figure out who the narrator is which is, itself, a bit confusing. What is really confounding is that in the entire issue it is rare for the narration to have anything to do with what is going on in the panel or the page it appears on. As a result the narration captions really break the flow of the panels and the dialogue, making the issue is a very disjointed reading experience.




On the good side, Art Adams’ pencils remain as strong as ever. He has a clean, attractive style that it is hard not to like. Particularly strong in this issue is the acting in his face work. The brother, Teddy, and the vice-principal stand out in panel after panel with great expressive work. Adams comes through with a belch shot for Teddy that may be one of the best of all time.




Overall, while I was frustrated with Loeb’s approach to this script, the story and the art are doing just enough to get me to stick around until the next issue comes out … whenever that might be.