"Devil Claws" (MST3K Comics)

Issue Number:  6
Release Date:  May 29th, 2019
Adapted From:  Johnny Jason, Teen Reporter #2; Black Cat Comics #1; Horrific #2
Original Publication Dates:  July/August 1962, June/July 1946, November 1952

It's time to conclude this miniseries!  Does Mystery Science Comic Book 3000 stick the landing?

Not really.

This final issue is probably the biggest disappointment of the run so far, as none of the stories are standouts, and the two I was anticipating most are merely slivers.  The longest portion of the book is spent with Jonah in Black Cat...or maybe it feels like the longest.  I'm not sure.  But Black Cat catches one more bad guy and saves her father from bleeding to death.  Jonah is still her quippy little assistant, and like all of the Black Cat segments, the humor is cute but it rarely lands.  Jonah's entire storyline was pretty much a bust in this series.

After that, we at long last conclude Tom Servo's run as Johnny Jason, Teen Reporter, but it feels like there is barely anything left to cover.  Servo and his rich girl companion escape from the bad guys, return home, where Servo reveals the culprit in a genuine Perry Mason moment.  Before any sort of humor gets rolling, we're turning the page again.  Servo's storyline does provide my favorite line of the issue, as a red haired character punches the villain and quips "This is for calling me 'Store-Brand Archie!'"

What these two segments of the issue have in common is that they're both tying loose ends in a hurry and just jumping to the next story.  I guess I'm getting a conclusion, but the laugh rhythm is off because they're so quick, which is why I'm buying the book in the first place.  If MST gets picked up for another volume, I would hope that they would try to do whole stories at once instead of chopping them up across six issues.

Another Crow Horrific tale could save the day, but it never gets a chance to start rolling either.  It feels like it's trying to start, but then the comic gets in a hurry to finish itself and Kinga and Max interfere with Crow's storyline, much to Crow's chagrin.  To be fair, this sets up a pretty good Matrix joke, as Crow alters the "reality" of the comic himself and declares himself "The One," but that's really only the second big laugh I got from the issue.

Then it's all over, and Kinga abandons the experiment, and gush over the new comic books they made in a cute bit of meta narcissism.  The issue ends on a maybe cliffhanger (I think), that confused me a little bit.  I don't know if it was just an excuse to include Crow's old catchphrase "You Know You Want Me, Baby!" into the comic or if this is a legitimate plot thread they're considering running with for a second volume, but the end is pretty odd.

I'm glad the MST comic series exists, and I got some solid laughs out of it, but it really ended on a whimper for me.  I'll probably revisit it once the trade paperback comes out and assess how the entire series works as a whole, but as individual issues, some worked better than others.  Unfortunately their last impression was also their weakest.

Average