We started with the September 11 attacks, then the invasion of Afghanistan, the great recession, and now we reach the 2016 presidential election. The opening page flashbacks are moving forward in time, jumping from event to event the perceived missteps in America’s young 21st-century history. Jenny Sparks is dealing with the aftermath of all this, keeping count, and trying to balance the scales. The issue starts with her talking with someone whose daughter is surprised that a certain candidate won the US election. At the bar, she is then approached by Batman and Superman.
Credit: DC Comics
Jeff Spokes shows this turn of events through elongated panels that are read vertically, making it a consistently refreshing read that stands out from other comics. Spokes portrays the disappointment and sadness in people’s faces so well. Jenny looks nonchalant, carrying her lightweight head, seemingly unaffected by the new century’s catastrophes. However, it’s clear that she is, by the curved lines on her eyebrows. On a 2D surface, Spokes paints Jenny’s face with layered emotional depth.
In the present, it picks up where issue #4 left off, where one of Captain Atom’s hostages is set free. The comic jumps around from how Jenny’s recruited by the league to her plan to take out the rogue Atom. Atom’s post-crisis origin is depicted, and reinterpreted by Tom King and Jeff Spokes, framing it as even more tragic than it was back in 1987. This look behind the curtain of both characters has been sorely missed from previous issues.
While Jenny is recruited to be the superhero internal affairs in 2016, in present-day she takes a long walk with the released hostage, a psychiatrist, and Tom King gets to show off his writing chops. King has always been amazing at dialogue between characters, sitting on benches, and sharing philosophical musings. That part of him gets a lot of panel mileage in this issue. Jenny can relate to the doctor, both living past their prime. And they talk about how absurd it all is, not just the superheroes in tights, but the world they, and by extension us – the readers – live in. Just like the Authority comics of old taking potshots on that era’s superhero comics, Jenny carries that spirit forward to the 2020s.
The closing pages really nail Jenny’s purpose and make her mini-series worth reading. She has survived the 20th century, so with that experience, she can comfort the next generation, and guide us through our trying times. The politics are very unsubtle and in your face, so it’s definitely up to the reader to decide if they want their comic to be filled with it. But there’s a lot to like… and a lot to disagree on. I guess we’ll see how it all wraps up plot-wise.
Jenny Sparks #5 isn’t afraid to say things, even if sometimes what it says gets jumbled up in capes and tights. On the upside, Jeff Spokes just gets better and better, making walking dialogue scenes dynamic with tilted shots of characters on Dutch angles. I would love to see him pair up with Tom King again in the future as their artistic sensibilities work well together. We get to see him render the main characters’ backstories, giving them the trademark Tom King tragedy, which fills it with proper pathos. There’s also Batman-Superman banter, which we could never have too much of.
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