Written by: Nick Spencer
Art by: Steve Lieber
Publisher: Image Comics
They say when a door is closed, a window may be opened, but Spencer and Lieber didn’t wait for any stupid window. Marvel shut the door on their series so they blew the house up, collected the insurance money, changed their identities, moved to a new town, and began to plan their biggest caper yet: the hilarious and pitch perfect The Fix.
About a year and a half ago, I reviewed the final issue of The Superior Foes of Spider-Man for this very site. I wrote that Foes was “one of the funniest books on the stands month in and month out,” and after reading one issue of The Fix, let me tell you: the laughs are intact, the characters are creator-owned, and f-bombs are dropped with aplomb.
The Fix is a story about two buddies who are in deep to a mob boss and they have to repay him any way they can. This issue includes their first attempt at a score, and while it’s successful, it does not go off without a hitch—as you may have guessed. This synopsis doesn’t do this book justice though, because the beauty is in the details—the myriad jokes, Lieber’s great character designs and sight gags, and the actually necessary/obligatory flashback sequence. This first issue does everything right in terms of story: we know who the main players are, their motivations, one character actually says ‘We are not sympathetic protagonists,’ (how can you not love that?) and the villain, if you can call him that, loves This American Life and hates gluton.
This issue has one part that actually made me laugh out loud when I read. A real LOL, if you can believe it. If anyone had been around, they would have thought I was crazy or asked me to explain what was so funny. Donovan is a producer in Hollywood, and if his story in this issue is any indication, he needs to be in every issue because he may be the weirdest/funniest character in all of comicdom right now. “I went into full on emergency protocols…” I was dying reading this, and you need to read this comic if you want a great laugh and don’t mind some pretty vulgar descriptions.
I’m giving this issue a perfect score because as I looked at the “cons” list, I couldn’t think of one. As soon as I started reading this comic and I realized how much I had missed the Spencer/Lieber collaboration, I was grinning from ear to ear. While the set-up isn’t the most original thing in the world, the execution and humor of the idea is well worth the price of admission. This comic deserves to live well past 17 issues, so please buy a copy and do your part to support “funny-books” that are actually funny.
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