Minor Threats: Welcome to Twilight
When the creators of a cult hit comic series hit up their friends to contribute to an anthology series about it, you don’t expect the contributors to be bigger names than the people who created it. In the case of “Minor Threats” co-creators Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum, they’ve accumulated a lot of friends while working in the comics and entertainment industries who have written bigger and better comics than they have. Which explains the surprising amount of A-list talent that contributed stories to this latest spinoff miniseries. It doesn’t result in something that’s substantially better than the main “Minor Threats” miniseries, but the results still deliver one of the better spinoffs from it so far.
The Wing-Man by Matt Fraction and Mike Allred: Ben Bronkman may have wings that don’t work, but they also made him one of the most recognizable stars of the 80’s in the smash-hit cop show “Wing and a Prayer.” These days he makes his living on the autograph circuit with a consulting job on the upcoming “Wing” reboot being the best his career can hope for these days. Until he has an encounter with a mysterious woman in a hotel room that he can’t forget, which sets him on a collision course with one of Twilight City’s more unusual crime bosses.
Longtime readers will know that I think Fraction’s output has been very uneven over the years. While this lacks the winning irreverence of his best work, it’s still an enjoyable riff on the perils of a Hollywood career for actors with some noirish tropes thrown in for fun. Allred’s art feels a bit subdued here, but that still feels consistent with the tone the creators were trying to achieve. Though, I wish he’d been able to deliver more oddball hero/villain designs as the few he delivers here are quite good.
Dokkaebi by Brian Michael Bendis and Soo Lee: That’s the name of a goblin in Korean folklore, and the name of a minor villain who was friends with Frankie “Playtime” Follis when they were younger. Before Dokkaebi disappeared without a trace, I mean. Now she’s back in Twilight City looking to settle an old score without getting her old buddy involved (maybe).
Soo Lee delivers some distinctive art with good character designs – loved seeing Patton and Jordan in tanuki suits – while the story by Bendis comes off as a weird flex. You’d think that most creators would try to stay away from using the characters its creators have indicated are central to the story of “Minor Threats,” yet the writer decides to give Playtime her own secret best friend. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing for the character to have, particularly after where she was left in the previous miniseries. Except that it’s really hard to feel invested in this when I don’t think we’ll be seeing Dokkaebi again.
Every Dream Home a Heartache by Gail Simone and Gene Ha: He was the lord under the oceans in his home dimension. Now, Crab Louie struggles to contribute to his household with a wife that’s continually disappointed in him and a daughter that doesn’t respect him. As he doesn’t have many skills beyond being a former superhero, he takes a gig at a convention with other weird failures hoping that he’ll be able to make a buck on his fading name. That all changes when some bad dudes crash the convention and Louie gets one (last?) chance to show the world that he can still be a hero.
I was worried that this story was going to be a bummer at first with how hard Simone was pushing the direness of Louie’s home and professional lives. Things picked up when we got to see the oddballs he was set to work alongside at the convention, and the in-jokes associated with them. Then the crisis hits and things wind up coalescing into the best story of the volume, thanks to Ha’s art as well. In addition to the great detail he brings to all of his work, he’s also very committed to making the silly, ridiculous, and in-jokey parts of the story feel like they’re all meant to be together and worthy of your attention.
The Cleaner by Gerry Duggan and Mark Torres: David O’Halloran has a respectable day job selling art out of his gallery. What he doesn’t tell his respectable clients is that it’s also his way of disposing of the evidence from his other job as someone who gets rid of bodies for the underworld of Twilight City. He’s very good at his job, even though he’s still paying for the time he tried to hide someone from a hero and a villain.
Twilight City really does seem like it would need a man like David and while the job he’s on at the start of the story may seem a bit ostentatious, it sets the right tone for what can only be called an absurdist noir. That might seem like a hard style to make work on a visual level, but Torres pulls it off, even if his panel layouts can be occasionally clunky. This story is also notable for being the only one in the volume to do something with “Minor Threats” use of familiar superhero analogues to tell its own unique story about a guy who gets involved with a mash-up of two of Batman’s notable paramours.
In terms of how enjoyable all these stories are, I’ll just say that three out of four ain’t bad. Judged in terms of how much I’d like to see these characters in future stories, I think they’ve got legs – or wings – as it were, even though enjoyment of Dokkaebi’s introduction feels contingent on seeing her used again. As for future “Minor Threats” spinoff miniseries in this format? This is a good enough argument for Patton and Jordan to continue using their connections to get more comics out of them.