The fun of writing about supervillains is that they can fit into the kind of stories that superheroes rarely fit, especially in the crime genre. Minor Threats: The Last Devil Left Alive #4 is the perfect example of this, as it slips into the rhythms of a heist story. Said heist involves Playtime and her group of assorted criminals hijacking a multiversal train station to stop real estate mogul Cooper Scadlock from unleashing an alternate universe of horrors on Redport’s people. Everyone has their part to play, but those parts might not be what they expect.
One of those key parts belongs to newly minted teenage supervillains, the VHS Villain and Dinosorcerer. True to the weird, wild world that Patton Oswalt, Jordan Blum, and Scott Hepburn have set up, the two embrace one of the oldest tropes in the superhero book as they’re legacy characters (their grandfathers briefly appeared in the previous series, Minor Threats: The Fastest Way Down) and they have off-the-cuff powers, with VHS Villain weaponizing videotapes and Dinosorcerer summoning the ghosts of dinosaurs. Like any new generation, they also are divided on their predecessors, with one of them fully into Playtime’s plan and the other questioning it.
Those questions revolve around her own unique abilities, which allow her to craft complex machinery that takes the form of highly lethal toys. Oswalt and Blum’s script reveals that there’s a catch to said ability: Playtime doesn’t know what she’s making until it finally takes shape. While that might sound like a disaster in the making, it’s actually a reminder to the reader that being unpredictable is the best plan somebody can have. That unpredictability spreads throughout the book, whether it’s the Searcher making a play that no one saw coming or Playtime and Scalpel potentially rediscovering the spark that drew them to each other.
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It’s also a major presence in Hepburn’s artwork. A group of Scadburn’s fellow tech bros go out for a night of debauchery…and encounter the wrath of Shiteater. That isn’t the only time the mutant fly gets to shine, as he shares a tender moment with Searcher that feels equal parts heartwarming and weird under Hepburn’s pencils. I also love a sequence early in the book where VHS Villain and Dinosorcerer have a conversation while rappelling through a cave, especially as Hepburn designs it as a visual homage to the poster for The Goonies. Even better: it’s a homage that makes sense, given the duo’s search for meaning, and it’s subtle.
Ian Herring and Nate Piekos round things out, giving each character a distinct voice. In the case of Dinosorcerer, his narrative captions take on a light blue hue, with his signature hat topping the right-hand corner; VHS Villains are a classic combo of black and white with a videotape. Even their titles get a signature font, whether it’s all pixels or scales.
Minor Threats: The Last Devil Left Alive #4 delivers a heist tale in the weird, wonderful way only this series can, as it races to the finish line. Oswalt, Blum, and Hepburn never fail to deliver, and I trust that they’ll stick the landing.
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