Jenny Sparks #4 begins with a quote referring to the capture of Osama Bin Laden. It then follows Jenny as she kidnaps the CEO of Atlantic Bank and proceeds to dole out justice, as the man’s loose lending practices led to the US financial crisis. Interspersed between is the present, where Jenny negotiates with Captain Atom amongst the corpses of the Justice League.
Jeff Spokes continues to deliver gorgeous visuals; every character is drawn beautifully with distinct features. Previously, he distinguished the past from the present with the Middle East’s warm earth tones. Now, he uses cold blue hues to signify a house without power, as a product of the common foreclosures in that time.
Credit: DC Comics
Tom King goes in hard on the theme of this mini-series, doubling down on what it means. I guess it’s about generations – Jenny Sparks, the spirit of the 20th century, is the repeating past. The previous century’s problems came back to haunt the next generation; her dying plea for the world to be saved after her passing fell on deaf ears. It is weird that someone born in England with a Union Jack shirt is so critical of American issues, and to be so committed to its sins exclusively at the beginning of the 21st century.
Looking past that, there are a lot of great pages here, where the writing and the art meet halfway to strike a chord. The page where Atom changes his and Jenny’s appearance multiple times on different panels comes to mind, along with the montage of the CEO’s greed leading to the common man’s fall.
The events in the bar are no longer as pronounced, and the hostages seem to pay as much attention to their release as readers do. Captain Atom, with his insane acts of grandeur, may be representative of America’s worst, the narcissistic hubris due to a superpower. If so, he serves that purpose well. The reason the series is not about Jenny Quantum, the spirit of the 21st century, is presumably because of the past’s continued influence on the present. Funnily enough, the comics of the 20th century still drag their feet to the stands as much as the world’s sins do. The specter of Watchmen and the British Invasion haunt these pages as much as its Americanization of Jenny.
Jenny Sparks #4 is an American story through and through. Jenny is the response to the government’s failure in the war on terror and the financial crisis. In that, it’s an interesting read. Who knows what the next issue will tackle? What’s certain is there’s nothing else quite like it on the shelves, definitely, nothing that looks as good.
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