by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky
collects Sex Criminals #21-25
volume reviews fourgy | five
At this point in the relationship, we know what to expect from Sex Criminals – lots of sex and drawings of penises, but also, some vaguely meaningful commentary on relationships and intimacy. And even when we don’t get either of those things, we’re getting hilarious visual gags and puns, meta rants between the creators, and the like.
Unfortunately this latest – and penultimate – arc of Sex Criminals didn’t deliver on any of those things. It was a confusing, rambling set of issues where nothing really happens and the humor has almost completely evaporated.
Suzie and Jon broke up, and six months later they’ve both moved on with other partners, neither of whom seem that ecstatic about. Jon is in an open relationship with a woman who seems much more interested in banging women than being with him – oh, and Jon is bisexual too? Did I completely miss that? – and he seems to have sunk even further into his mental health issues. He works full time at Cumworld which surely isn’t helping either.
Suzie, on the other hand, is in a relationship with an older, pretentious gallery owner whose art installations are extremely sexual (and probably the funniest things in the book), but she has a less than satisfying sex life with him. She’s moved back in with her mother, who apparently has become some sort of sex therapist for her female friends, and hand mirrors are involved, and it’s just weird – how Suzie stays living at home is beyond me.
PS – This was a nice scene but I’m not exactly sure how her boyfriend’s art gallery is also where Van Gogh’s Starry Night also exists. Somehow, bug sex installation and most famous painting behind Mona Lisa don’t seem to belong in the same place. Actually, never mind. This is Sex Criminals. That absolutely makes sense.
While these two are bumbling through their post-breakup sadness there are a bunch of other meandering storylines that don’t seem to go anywhere. Here are a few:
- Jon’s therapist is cheating on Ana with Myrtle, who decides to switch sides when Badal threatens to expose her affair to her husband
- Jon goes into a sex club, and the red/black color scheme look a lot like his dream-obsession with Myrtle but it doesn’t explain or resolve anything
- Badal’s weird way to use his own powers
- Alix jumps in front of a bus presumably to test the limit of her own powers
- Everyone goes rollerblading?
- Dewey begins a relationship with a bus driver, who looks exactly like him (…why? Also I’ve forgotten who Dewey is about four times)
- Suzie somehow reunites with her dead father over his computer, and then somehow also gets ahold of financial records to figure out Badal’s insider trading, with a Microsoft Word Clippy-esque helper that looks like…let’s say take the first three letters of Clippy and you figure it out.
Some of these things might seem irreverent enough to be funny, but none of them really were, nor did they contribute to a cohesive story. (We also saw a WHOLE THING about Rach and her boyfriend in the last arc and we saw her in one panel. Not that I cared much about her, but still, what gives?) Zdarsky’s art is still great, and there are some wordless pages where Zdarsky handles the narration wonderfully. But the visual humor was really missing here – aside from the art installations and Suzie’s mom’s hand gestures at the dinner table.
And of course, we knew that Jon and Suzie would eventually get back together, but how they did really sucks. C’mon, Suzie! Jon didn’t have any goals for the relationship and he didn’t let you in! You tried, and you brought markers, dammit! I know you missed him – everyone misses their partner after a breakup if they weren’t completely nuts or abusive – and your next boyfriend was an asshole, but what, you just forgive him and get back together?
On one hand, Fraction could make it clear later that Suzie is just bouncing back into a comfortable relationship with Jon, along with a healthy scoop of self-denial about why they broke up in the first place (as the back cover says, “because reasons”). It definitely happens. But I’m not sure what that will look like seeing as we’re heading into the final arc of Sex Criminals.
Hopefully in the series finale we’ll see what’s behind Jon’s issues, and maybe he and Suzie can get back together – if he’s willing to get over himself a little bit. I suppose they’ll take down Badal too, but the series has always been about Jon and Suzie. I hope it ends more like it started and less like this volume.
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