Comics Review: Simpsons #207

Spoilers Below

We get a glimpse of Comic Book Guy, in his radioactive pajamas, in Springfield Elementary, thinking that he is dreaming. He jumps out the window, only to land in a bush in front of principal Bart. He has the school in order, until a prankster starts to turn the school upside down. Turns out it’s kid Skinner and Kid Homer. Bart outsmarts them and gets them to turn on one another. He wakes up, and wakes up Lisa, who was dreaming about being in a group called Jazz Squad. That includes Bleeding Gums Murphy, Billie Holiday and Thelonious Monk. They tackle traffic, escaped dogs, and the mob.

We transition to a Burns Dream, where everything is in greyscale. He has made a factory that makes factories, with Springfield’s version of the Three Stooges. He wakes up and wants to fire Lenny, Carl and Homer, but falls right back to sleep. Smithers, while being really creepy sitting next to a sleeping Burns, is watching Krusty’s late night show. He’s suddenly in a supermarket, where everyone are clowns. He rushes to his show, where everyone in the audience is a clown as well. Cleetus becomes a billionaire, thanks to Snake, and we get the Ghostbusters thanks to Officer Wiggum. Finally, thanks to Comic Book Guy, we get a war between Lenny Carl, Homer, and Skinner, where Skinner is the only one to make it to his mother. He gets his big boy pants, and is still whipped by mother. We end this episode with a dream of a fight between a robot and a dragon.

This comic was sure different. What makes this stand out is that it puts some characters in situations that you don’t expect, like Bart as principal, or Lisa in a group of superhero jazz musicians. That’s what makes the comics different from the show, the writers can take chances and do things that you probably couldn’t do on the show. I like the nods to Ghostbusters and the Three Stooges as well, it broke up the stream of the story, and made for a nice diversion. Overall, this is a good read, and worth the purchase.