Issue Number: 4
Release Date: February 6, 2019
Adapted From: Black Cat Comics #1, Horrific #2
Original Publication Date: June/July 1946, November 1952
In reading the latest issue of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Comic I found myself mostly reminded of the experience I had in reading the second issue. There's an incomplete Jonah story in Black Cat and a Crow short story in Horrific, and just as before Crow's is much, much funnier than Jonah's. I might be a tad bit more lenient on this issue because I didn't find Jonah's tale as chaotic here as it was in issue 2, though there are a few things I feel anchor it down.
However before I indulge in negative criticism, I'd like to give a few positive notes. The issue did make me laugh surprisingly early in the first and second panels in which Max questions Crow's comic personal of "The Crow Keeper" being a knockoff of the Cryptkeeper from Tales from the Crypt. Kinga bluntly reminds Max that he himself is a knockoff of the more popular TV's Frank from the original MST series, which is very well played. We are then thrust into Jonah's new Black Cat story, "The Buddha's Secret," which gets off to a shocking start in which our actress/vigilante heroine is made up in yellowface for a movie as actual Chinese men stand off camera and congratulate her on how "native Chinese" she comes off as, which is just so offensive that it's kind of funny on its own in shock laughs.
Mickey Rooney would be proud.
As for the rest of Jonah's tale, this one has Black Cat gifted a little Buddha statue from her actual Chinese consultant on the film. It is then thieved from her dressing room and she goes in pursuit. She tracks down the thief to a garden museum ran by her consultant, where she finds Chinese thugs whipping the son of her consultant, Chang. She saves Chang only to discover that he was the one who stole the Buddha, which he hid jewels inside to pay off a gangster. The story ends when the gangster comes for payment.
These Black Cat comics are very wordy and there is a lot of text to read even without taking riffs into account. The plots are clumsy and layering humor on top of them doesn't help. Opening the MST comics with them really tuckers a reader out. This one is okay overall, without any big laughs had. There is a cute running gag with Waverly inserting himself into fight scene panels and translating grunts, but that's about the only memorable riff portion of the story.
Turning our attention to Horrific, Crow is still the big laugh riot of this comic series. Here he tells a mildly interesting story of a sculptress who discovers her husband is having an affair with the maid. She murders the maid and covers her in clay, posing her as a statue to wow the art critics (I think I've seen an episode of Get Smart like this). She then gets plastic surgery and poses as a new maid with the intention of doing the same to her husband.
Crow lifts the comic past its laugh quota pretty fast as this tale starts, with one of the strongest laughs of the book happening early on as the sculptress passes her housekeeper thinking to herself "I wish I had her looks! Grover would probably love me for myself instead of my talent!" and the maid thinks at the same time "I wish I had her talent! Grover would love me for myself instead of my looks!" Crow also relies on a lot of puns during this macabre tale, with one of my favorites as our main character is about to unravel her bandages from plastic surgery, to which Crow responds "Good news! You're going to be a MUMMY!" These Crow Keeper stories are a blast! Keep 'em comin'!
Oh wait...it actually looks as if Crow has been sucked out of his comic as something goes haywire on Kinga's end. Crow, Gypsy, Growler, and Waverly wind up at the Bar S Ranch from Johnny Jason, Teen Reporter and just lounge around the house, leading Kinga to try and spice things up with a Wizard of Oz inspired Totino's Pizza Rolls commercial. It's fun, but Horrific would have been the better closer.
It looks as if comics are about to collide for the final two issues of this limited run. I'm curious about how crazy this is all going to get, but with the promise of no more stories from the most consistent run in these issues, is the series going to stay funny? It's hard to say right now, but this issue is pretty good as a whole.
Good
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