Comics Review: The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror #21

Spoilers Below:

“Graveyard Shift”

While working late one night, Apu received a mysterious package filled with Bart-like gremlins. The creatures originally helped him by killing Snake during an attempted robbery, but they soon turned on Apu as well. He managed to trap them in the Squishee machine and ground them up, but Homer ended up drinking the mixture, turning him into a giant gremlin.

“The Left Behinders!”

The rapture came to Springfield, and Ned Flanders was puzzled as to why he wasn’t included among the saved. He soon realized it was because of his (and others’) left-handedness. The “left behind” soon established a new leader (Flanders) and a new deity (Krusty), while Professor Frink worked on a cure for being left-handed. Mr. Burns attempted to save the city (so he could eventually seize power) and let a bunch of mutant monsters free from the plant. They began destroying the city and terrorizing its residents, before eating some of Krusty’s followers (while he was on a coffee break) and dying due to the lead paint they were wearing as clown makeup.

Flanders was accidentally given the only cure made by Frink, and discovered that it wasn’t actually Armageddon that took place, but instead the work of Kang & Kodos trying to staff their sweatshop spaceship. However, the hours and benefits were spectacular, so Flanders ended up staying aboard.

“Springfieldopolis”

In the future, the land of Springfieldopolis was full of over-worked laborers, and Marge rallied for more rights and fairer treatment. She was kidnapped by big boss Mr. Burns, who replaced her with a robot that was supposed to change the workers’ minds. Instead, they just partied with the easy-going robot, and the city began to fall apart. Robots took over the work in order to save Springfieldopolis, but this only led to mass unemployment. Oh well.

Best Bits:

1) Flanders to Rod & Todd: “Oh, sweet heaven! I was worried you were both in sweet heaven!”

2) Mr. Burns referred to Smithers’ floating up to heaven as “Peter Pannery.”

3) Flanders introduced himself as “the owner of the Leftorium store in the bad mall.”

4) Moe & the spilled bananas: “We got no choice but to slip on the peels in a hilarious manner!”

5) One of Burns’ factory workers was Charlie Chaplin à la Modern Times. Later, one of the robots also appeared Chaplin-like.

6) Homer’s performance review: “Your work today was unacceptable! And most of the complaints came from people that had to endure looking at you with your shirt off!”

If you couldn’t tell by the “best bits” section, the first segment didn’t have much going for it. It was a Gremlins spoof, which was entertaining, but the writing was surprisingly dull. Apu was full of slightly-corny, smirk-worthy comments, but nothing was laugh-out-loud funny, in my opinion. Luckily it was brief.

On the other end, the “Springfieldopolis” story was much longer, and a bit funnier. The dialogue contained a few gems, but the best part was definitely the references. In addition to obviously being a Metropolis spoof and the aforementioned Modern Times ones, there was a Star Wars allusion (Frink created C-3PO) and a Wizard of Oz one too (“Oh, what a world!”)

However, this section was a bit too long. It took up almost half the issue, and didn’t have the consistent laughs or amusing plot to carry it all the way though. Still pretty solid though.

The middle story was the strength of Issue #21. I already have a soft spot for Ned Flanders and poking fun at religion, so the story had me hooked, but the writing (Ian Boothby strikes again) was fantastic. In addition to the bullet points above, I adored Rod’s cold-blooded comment to Todd while floating away from their panicking dad: “Just pretend you can’t hear him!”

There was also a nice evolution jab (which was really a jab at creationists), a reference to Planet of the Apes (with Frink’s lab monkeys-turned-soldiers) and even a cameo by The Babysitter Bandit (remember her?)

Of course, no Simpsons Halloween special could be complete without Kang & Kodos, and “The Left Behinders!” delivered – with a twist! As often happens, our alien friends were once again misunderstood, as they employed “slave labor,” but actually treated their workers better than most American companies.

You’d think after so many appearances (at least once yearly on TV and almost the same amount for the comics), the Rigel VII representatives would get stale, but props to all the writers involved for keeping their appearances fresh and entertaining each time. Heck, I even liked their non-Halloween episode, “The Man Who Came to be Dinner.” And I was pretty skeptical of that one beforehand.

My only major qualm with this issue (aside from the minor ones I previously mentioned) was the pricetag. $5 is a bit steep for the quality of the content received, but not by much. The issue still dishes out a lot as far as quantity goes, and there are enough laughs that it’s definitely still worth a purchase.

Plus, it’s almost Halloween, and I’ll take any excuse to celebrate that fact.