Today, Greg and Drew are discussing The Illegitimates 4, originally released March 19th, 2014.

Greg: There’s a level of poker-faced sincerity in The Illegitimates that is, at the very least, somewhat admirable. At times the issue reminded me of VHS box art to 1980s action movies, the “blue skies” of USA shows like Burn Notice, and a sense of hazy nostalgia that I’ve played this video game before but couldn’t tell you the name of it. I offer muted applause to the issue for offering unironically these kinds of low-stakes, predictable pleasures gleaned from these cultural experiences, yet can’t help but notice it neither commits hard enough nor subverts strongly enough to make any lasting impact. 

Our titular crew, the illegitimate offspring of the James Bond-esque Jack Steele (one of the issue’s few clever twists on the genre; if someone like Bond is boinking all these beauties without protection, he’d probably have a bunch of babies), is on their way to storm an oil rig owned by evil concrete magnate Dannikor. As they infiltrate the area, dispatch with baddies, and deliver some warmed-over one-liners, two heavy things weigh on their minds. One: has Dannikor hidden their kidnapped moms here? Two: is one of our crew a mole? The answer to the first question is a resounding no, which is made perfectly clear in a delicious reveal that their prison is IN SPAAAAAACE. The second question is not answered yet, but another teasing bit of information in Dannikor’s nefarious plans gets revealed: his alleged oil rig is actually a broadcast hub made to intercept brain waves and HACK THE HUMAN BRAAAAAAIN.

Those all-caps repeated A’s are mine, of course, and they’re a little cheeky of me. I truly wish, though, that they were genuine, because I honest to goodness love big, pulpy plot twists like this. A lot of the time, unfortunately, it feels like co-writers Taran Killam and Marc Andreyko love them — and, really, most of the genre tropes they’re working with — much less than I. As a person who went to college studying and doing lots of art theory and criticism, there’s nothing that grinds my gears more than deriding a work for “only” being entertainment. I would argue, tooth and nail, that something that is immensely entertaining is not only a “valid” piece of art (whatever that means), but oftentimes a more honest and immediate piece of art, hitting folks right in their primitive pleasure zones. However, if your m.o. is sheer entertainment, you have to own that, one hundred percent. And The Illegimates too often feels like seventy, tops. For every delicious amount of wordplay like this —

— we have two or three moments of white noise like this.

Seriously, how does this joke cut the mustard? Why is it in quotes? Are they referencing the drink, the act, both? There wasn’t one character-specific that could be added to the one-liner, other than “he likes sex, I guess”? After enjoying the pristine “jokes-that-are-also-function-as-more-than-jokes” of Deadpool, these just feel lazy.

On a positive note, I’m very fond of the richness of colorist Peter Pantazis’ work. It feels deep, dramatic, and lived in; an impressive amount of simultaneous world-building, style-orientation, and straight up aesthetic pleasure is derived from his work. In particular, there’s a beautiful spread on the line “I think we have a situation here,” where Pantazis allows some truly beautiful and mellow sunset colors of purples, oranges, and yellows to bleed into and contrast against the agitated violence of an explosion. We’re both shocked at the juxtaposition drawn — tranquil nature disrupted by man-made explosives — and at the similarities drawn — holy cannoli, those are the same colors! Sadly, unique enlightenments like this are few and far between in the issue.

Drew, I jumped at the chance to review this title because of seeing current Saturday Night Live MVP Killam listed as a writer, and I was keen on seeing some sharply comedic stuff (especially after seeing how great Brian Posehn is doing on Deadpool). Yet I find Killam’s point of view, so well-defined on SNL, sorely missing here. In fact, I’d go so far as to say there’s barely ANY point of view, so content is the issue to just serve us the bare minimum of the genre. What do you think?

Drew: I suspect part of the problem here is that Killam is so immersed in the world of sketches, where those kind of character-defining details have to be shed for time. I appreciate that this idea was a little too high-concept to fit into a sketch, but I think the reason this feels so generic is that it’s still being treated like one. We don’t expect complex character work in a sketch — it’s often enough to define characters as broad archetypes — but is basically what separates longer form narratives from one another. That is, a reliance on tropes works great in the short term, as you can let the audience’s familiarity with them fill in the blanks, but is basically poison over the long term. I’d love to see a sketch sending up the idea of a team of diverse action heroes who can’t get along, but I’ll be damned if I ever want to read another comic featuring one.

Maybe that utter genericness is the point, and this really is meant as a send-up, but unfortunately, I’m not sure it’s possible to make something so generic it’s funny — at least not in a world where it’s indistinguishable from other comics and movies that are so earnestly middlebrow. I take very little pleasure in laughing at incidentally ho-hum artwork, I can’t really see the point of laughing at it when it’s intentional. I don’t want to turn this discussion into yet another diatribe on why I can’t get into media that is intentionally so-bad-it’s-good (like Tim and Eric or Snakes on a Plane), but I think I’m uncomfortable with it for the same reason I’m wary of straw-man arguments: it’s entirely too cheap to take the piss out of something you created for the sole sake of doing so. There’s nothing to be gained from such an exercise. It’s created only to be torn down, yielding a net of a big, boring zero.

Without a solid satire leg to fall back on, it ultimately doesn’t matter if the mediocrity of this comic is intended as comedy or not — it isn’t particularly entertaining either way. I think it stems from how generic everything is — both drama and comedy work best with specificity — but I’m not willing to put all of the blame on on the shoulders of Killam and Andreyko. Indeed, Sharpe has offered very little to distinguish this title from similar series. More importantly, he has failed to distinguish his female characters from one another. Like, the men can’t seem to stop ogling Sally, utterly failing to notice that Charlie has the identical face and body.

Normally, I’m willing to overlook an artist only having two figure types (ripped dudes and thin, busty women), but it actually botches a major plot point here. Do you remember how Sally’s mom is already dead? I didn’t either, so it would have been helpful to be able to tell whose mother was missing from Dannikor’s Buffalo Bill pit.

They’re all identical, and none of them look like they could possibly have given birth ever, let alone thirty years ago. Not that it really matters — we actually see Sally detonate the bomb at Generic Spy Agency Headquarters, which effectively wraps up that mystery, but it might help to have us invested in her history to make that reveal matter literally at all. Maybe her mom is still alive? Maybe she was sent by Dannikor? Maybe she’s working on her own and wants revenge on Generic Spy Agency for some reason? All of these seem possible, but only because we don’t know enough about her to rule anything out. Maybe she’s a space alien! Wouldn’t that be dumb lol?!

Ugh. There are some decent ideas here — I honestly think I could enjoy a story featuring either brain-hacking supervillains or the illegitimate offspring of James Bond — but the presentation is so utterly botched as to make the whole thing toothless. It’s always depressing when a narrative fails to live up to its own pitch (honestly, “It’s like The Expendables but with James Bond’s kids” sounds like it should be a blast), but this series hasn’t even come close.

For a complete list of what we’re reading, head on over to our Pull List page. Whenever possible, buy your comics from your local mom and pop comic bookstore. If you want to rock digital copies, head on over to Comixology and download issues there. There’s no need to pirate, right?