DC Comics reviews 9/18/19 – Justice League #32, Batman #79

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #1

The hard part about a book with such a heavy emphasis on comedy is occasionally it feels like there’s more of an intent than actually being funny.

That’s the case with this issue as writer Matt Fraction tries too hard to make some of the jokes and wackier interludes land. Maybe not surprisingly that’s only a problem when the focus is off of the title character, who Fraction has no trouble crafting hilarious moments revolving around Jimmy.

Most of the forced humor comes in the framing narration captions. In one scene, the narration asks a series of questions before finishing with a “who cares?” The attempt to be flippant is obvious, but as the writer it’s also Fraction’s job to make readers care to some degree about what he’s including in the script.

The art by Steve Lieber remained consistently strong with a playful throwback style that works beautifully for the title.

Hopefully this was just a rare misstep instead of a sign of things to come, but for this issue the random chapters didn’t do a whole lot for the story especially since the more enjoyable sequences revolves around Jimmy.

Rating: 7 out of 10