Unit 44 #5

Okay, to be fair, this concept isn’t a good one. Unit 44's first four issues are a complete story told in four parts. I put the mega issue down and genuinely did not want more, in the best way possible. So when I found out that that more Unit 44 had been released I was... cautious. Skeptical. How do you follow up something that I think is this close to objectively perfect? By the description it didn't sound like they were continuing the major storylines from the first four issues, but I could be wrong? So I bought, hoping that lightning would get into the bottle again.

It didn't.

But it's still damn good.

Issue Five follows our favorite numbnuts as they try to pick apart what's going on with what's obviously a cult. There's some great hijinks, a stubborn persistence in not spoiling exactly how the cult is being mind-controlled (no, it's not what they're saying in the book, and props to the writer and artist on showing that), and some of the funniest pie humor I'll ever read.

I mean, has anyone actually ever had a raisin pie? Let me know if you have.

First off, the art duties switched to a new guy. I don't hate him. I don't particularly love him, either. He's got a good sense of composition, some of his facial expressions are absolutely hilarious, and he's got a good sense of who and what the characters are. He manages to copy what made them so distinctive to begin with, and puts his own spin on it all. I respect that. I just don't think he's as good as Jimenez, the original artist. 

Locher's script is where this all hinges on, and it just doesn't hit the same high notes as the original run. The story is funny, and there's some great gags thrown in there that definitely made me laugh, but it's just not as side-splittingly hilarious as the original run. I find that regrettable, but again, it's hard to catch lightning in a bottle twice. This was still a good comic, I still liked the story, but the downshift is really hard to ignore.

That being said, the last two to three pages of the main story is worth the price of the comic alone.

Will I get more Unit 44. Absolutely! This stuff still makes me laugh and it's nice to be able to do that. But it's simply not the same to me. The art, the writing, it's all competent, and gets the job done. But this isn't practically divinely inspired, like the first four issues. Still worth my money, but I'm not going to pretend that this is anywhere near the original run.

That being said, I need to try raisin pie now.