Review: SECOND COMING #2
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Mark Russell
Art: Richard Pace and Leonard Kirk
Colors: Andy Troy
Letters: Rob Steen
Reviewed by: Tony Farina
Summary
Second Coming #2 focuses on Janice and Sunstar’s relationship. Janice, an award winning journalist, is asked to cover something somewhat beneath her pay grade. However, as we learn, almost no story is innocuous. Janice gets some hate mail. Sunstar, already beating himself up over the fact that the robots he wantonly smashed in the last issue were actually humans in robot suits. He killed them all in a pretty gruesome fashion. Humans do not react well.
Instead of actually listening to what Jesus has to say, Sunstar goes off and does more incredibly stupid things. Also, God shows up and takes Sunstar to the cafeteria in Heaven. That looks nothing like you might think it would look like, but when you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
Positives
The visual jokes just keep landing. Mark Russell’s run on Flintstones was full of these and Second Coming #2 is full of them as well. Here are just a few fun examples. After Sunstar finds out that the robots were actually people, he goes to group therapy. Here is he bulletin board notification.
Later as he and Jesus are walking around town, check out the billboard. Milk out the nose funny.
There are so many more. Wait until you see the cafeteria in Heaven. So brilliant.
Of course, the pictures do not do all the work. The last line of Second Coming #2 is the following: “In my experience, force usually fails. Of course, mercy often fails too-but it does so more pleasantly.” If anything can sum up what this book is about, it is this last line. One thing Mark Russell does to his readers is he makes them look at themselves. Sometimes he actually wants each reader to look at him or herself directly. In this case, he wants us to look at American Society as a whole. How do we solve problems? Do we take a beat and ask how to do things with mercy or do we send troops? Pretty heavy stuff for such a funny comic.
Negatives
Still, people will be offended. Again, Mark and Richard know. Don’t worry.
Verdict
Once again, this book is full of laugh out loud humor and hurts so good satire. Take your time with this issue. Well, with all of them really. Nothing is done on accident in this book. Think about what this book is saying about the intersection of organized religion and the way superheroes are treated in traditional comic books. What does that say about both?
