Comic Review: Simpsons Comics #243

Springfield gets taken over by a supervillain not named Burns in the latest Simpsons Comic.

Overview:

It is the return of the devious mastermind Hank Scorpio. After a stint of taking over the entire country, Scorpio takes a trip to Springfield to visit his only living friend in the world, Homer.  After a few drinks at Moe’s, Scorpio puts away with his plan to take over the world and go for something bigger, Springfield.  Mayor Quimby quickly hands over the keys to the city and Scorpio starts implementing some great plans for the town.

After their father starts bringing in some great money as Scorpio’s new assistant, Bart and Lisa get suspicious.  As the pair team-up, they uncover that Scorpio may not have been so quick to put away his plans of world dominance as easily as he made it seem. In the end, it is up to Homer to decide between letting the world blow up, or his well-paying job.

Our Take:

The return of a fan-favorite character in a full comic story- what’s not to love.  Hank Scorpio returns in grand fashion, and this book is worth picking up for the first couple pages which features where he has been all this time.  They really sell the supervillain theme this time around and prove that he is an under-utilized character in the series. I would be happy to read an entire 8-issue run of one of the most popular one-time characters of The Simpsons.

The issue did a great job of bringing the story full-circle, and it all connects really well.  While having a few shorter stories is always nice, a full Simpsons comic can outdo the long-running show at times.  I was happy to see Bart and Lisa team up to solve the mystery; that is classic Simpson’s storytelling that the show has been missing.

I enjoyed reading through this issue, and there were a few solid punchlines.  However, my own review is showing the problems with this book.  I should not be comparing the comic to the TV series as much as I do.  I try to avoid it, but the comic makes it difficult to separate the storytelling. Honestly, this book would have made a great episode of The Simpsons, but as a comic, they could have done so much more. The Simpsons line of comics usually does step-up the game, meaning this probably wasn’t that strong of a book.