Second Coming #3 // Review
Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. We often find ourselves reminiscing about the good times, about the things we miss from our pasts. But memory also has a way of smoothing out the edges where those edges shouldn’t have been smoothed. Both of the protagonists of Second Coming #3 face this in different ways.
While the issue starts with Jesus and Sunstar on a mission together, they spend most of the chapter apart. Sunstar and his girlfriend go to his hometown to retrieve his mother, who has escaped from her nursing home. Meanwhile, Jesus has an encounter with Satan, followed by an encounter with his own worshippers; of course, it’s that second encounter that leads to disaster.
Mark Russell’s writing continues to be both witty and mercurial. This issue alone manages to satirize Christianity, geriatric care, community colleges, and superhero comics. That’s not even counting the throwaway background gags (the signs on the stores in Sunstar’s hometown are worthy of literal laughs out loud). It’s a shame, then, that the issue also seems somewhat unfocused. Without Jesus to bounce off, Sunstar, Russell’s Superman stand-in, just reads as a dopey parody along the lines of Marvel’s Superduperman. Jesus’ modern-day trials also seem somewhat rote.
This book makes a subtle change in the art department. In the first two issues, artist Richard Pace penciled the whole book but did finishes and colors on the scenes set in heaven or in the past, or the scenes featuring just Jesus, while Leonard Kirk and Andy Troy handled the inks and colors on the pages featuring Sunstar. In this issue, Pace handles the Sunstar pages solo, while Kirk and Troy finish and color the Jesus pages. Luckily, Kirk and Troy recreate Pace’s lush, almost watercolor style well, and the issue looks consistent with the previous two. Rob Steen’s lettering is solid, as always.
CORRECTION: As Mr. Pace remarked in the comments section of this article, he did the inking and coloring on the Jesus pages, as he did in the first two issues, and Kirk and Troy finished and colored the Sunstar pages. The original statements in the review were based on the credits as listed in the comic, which were incorrect. Apologies for the error. Regardless, the art is all fantastic!
Second Coming remains smart enough, and that goes a long way, but this third issue seems worryingly unfocused. Here’s hoping that the introduction of Satan as a character and the significant plot development at the end of this issue signal a return to tight plotting and story focus in future issues.
