There was a Justice League piss-take team called The Authority at the end of the ‘90s created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch. Both The Authority and Ellis have been cancelled, in different meanings of the word, since then (Hitch is still knocking around) and one of the founding members of that team was Jenny Sparks, the Spirit of the 20th Century.
One of the least interesting characters in the group, she nevertheless featured in a pretty decent one and done spin-off by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, back when that pair took over The Authority after Ellis/Hitch moved on to bigger and better things. And that was the last I thought about the character.
The Authority has been brought back in different iterations since then - New 52 Stormwatch (the earlier sort-of version of The Authority) and The Wild Storm - with varying success but no lasting impression or big enough sales to keep it in print for long. Jenny may have been in those titles but I don’t remember.
Anyhoodles, Tom “Brings Back Obscure Characters And Does Crap Comics About Them” King has brought back Jenny Sparks in this rather crap comic with artist Jeff Spokes. He pits her against an even more unknown character, Captain Atom. The Captain is missing a few electrons because he’s decided that he’s God, taken several hostages in a bar, and will destroy creation. Somehow, Jenny Sparks - an immortal with electricity powers - will be able to defeat a being even the Justice League - yes, including Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and SUPERMAN - can’t.
I’ve read a lot of DC Comics and don’t think I’ve ever read a single Captain Atom - not that there’s all that many of them out there. Maybe that general lack of knowledge in the average comics reader informed the choice of Atom as villain. Because it doesn’t seem likely that he would be able to withstand simultaneous attacks from so many god-powered characters like Superman and Wonder Woman, but he does, and maybe he is just that more powerful than everyone. Maybe that’s why he’s not all that popular a character - he’s way too overpowered?
What actually did happen to The Authority - why is Jenny on her own? No idea. If she’s the Spirit of the 20th Century, why is she alive in the 21st - and if she is, shouldn’t she be a baby/child in the flashbacks to the early ‘00s? No idea. What about her relatively unimpressive power profile makes her best suited to being a cop for superheroes? No idea. Hmm. This general lack of explanation is partly why the comic is garbage.
The main reason is that the story is so bleeding boring. The characters sit in one location and natter on. And on. And on. Occasionally there’s a fight scene. Then more nattering. On. And on. And neither Jenny nor Atom are interesting speakers. Meanwhile we have lofty flashbacks to the significant events of the 21st century thus far - 9/11, the Iraq/Afghanistan war, the ‘08 crash, Bin Laden’s assassination, Trump, and COVID - to no real effect besides “America’s done some bad stuff and been through some shit”. Deep.
In King’s hands, Jenny herself just isn’t a compelling lead. She smokes constantly, she’s cynical, she has a potty mouth - therefore she’s kewl! … No, she’s a gassed-up mid who can’t carry her own book. At least not one written by late-career Tom King.
Oh and speaking of potty mouth - DC Black Label. Remember what that was supposed to be? A line of comics meant for adults. Where you could show excessive violence and gore, nudity, adult situations, Batman’s peen, and print swear words, all without censorship. So why publish Jenny Sparks under the DC Black Label if you’re going to replace swear words with grawlix on every @#%$ing page?! It’s not @#%$ing funny, it’s so @#%$ing annoying and only becomes more @#%$ing annoying as the book goes on! @#%$ you DC for being utter pansies about swears in your “grown-up” line of comics.
Jeff Spokes’ art isn’t bad. A little too static for my taste but certainly not bad. And the style of the comic is good - you can tell that Tom King knows how to write a good comic because the presentation and tone is all there on the page; he’s written some great comics in his career - but King used to deliver great content along with the style and that’s entirely missing nowadays in his work.
Now, all you get is a lot of boring blather. A lot of boring action. Unmemorable, disjointed scene after scene. Seven issues of instantly-forgettable nothing. I’m not even sure how Jenny Sparks bested Captain Atom at the end. Or even if she did! That’s how fucking (that’s how it’s done “Black Label”) awful the story is.
It’s genuinely astonishing to me how everything King’s written outside of Batman is so underwhelming-to-poor. Jamie S. Rich, his editor on Batman, must’ve done a shit load of heavy lifting to get his scripts into the top tier Batman comics they became. That’s the only explanation I can see for this discrepancy.
And so it goes with Jenny Sparks - a spark-less, lifeless, DOA comic not worth your time. The Spirit of the 20th Century, like The Authority, is a thing best left in the past because it simply doesn’t work in more modern times.
No comments:
Post a Comment