Pulp Friction #4 – Review

By: Mark Waid (story), J Bone (art), Rom Fajardo (colors)

The Story: Who will save us when the Spirit and Rocketeer are down for the count?  It’s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt!

The Review: After the four months it took to get from #1 to #2, I wasn’t expecting to see #3 for at least another month or so.  So it was with no small amount of surprise that I discovered #4 sitting on the IDW shelf in my comic book shop last week.  That, of course, left me with the question of what to do about #3; I wasn’t all that enthused about hunting down an issue in which I had only a very mild interest anyway.

Eventually, I did what I so often do: compromised.  I did rummage through the back issues for #3 (and, might I add, they had plenty in stock); I did not actually purchase the issue.  Instead, I thumbed through it, got what I needed to know, and discreetly placed it back where I found it.  Well, come on—it’s not as if Pulp Friction boasted such complications in the plot that I needed the issues near at hand for reference.

That’s not to say, however, that the series hasn’t had its fair share of unexpected twists.  In addition to its pulp and screwball qualities, Pulp Friction took on a completely inexplicable sci-fi air with the revelation that the Octopus and Trask have not only mastered the art of television broadcast, but can somehow use it for both teleportation and mind-control purposes.  Fun!  And at least our villains have presence of mind to use this enormous advancement of technology for a crime of some consequence.

This having turned into a mostly comedic piece, however, every development exists solely for its gag and once the joke is over, it gets abandoned pretty quickly.  Waid doesn’t even bother to address how the villains’ tech will be put to use after the big kerfuffle is all over.  Maybe the Nazis* managed to destroy it after our heroes managed to use it to transport President FDR to safety.  Maybe the American government requisitioned it to end WWII a few years early.  Who knows?  Waid would rather leave you with the randy Commissioner Dolan finding love at last.

This would all be well and good had the characters been put to better use.  As is, it’s Rocketeer who has really suffered from the team-up, with Spirit outclassing him in nearly all the action scenes.  Cliff doesn’t help himself any with his constant freakouts over Denny’s macabre lifestyle (“Augh!  The Spirit!  That guy gives me the whim-whams!”), then fainting—yes, you heard right—from wearing his helmet at rest for too long.  Maybe this is Waid overcompensating for Spirit’s lack of special powers or weapons, but it sure makes Rocketeer seem like the lesser of the two heroes, no?

It’s also hard to see what each of them gets out of their brief partnership.  The closest we get is when Spirit declares to Cliff, “Thanks to your example, I’m going to make a conscious effort to keep personal problems away from my work.”  Despite the implications this has for Denny’s relationship with Ellen, nothing comes out of it, much like the existence of teleportation and mind-control technology decades before its time.  As for Cliff?  Well, he gets a new domino mask, which is, if nothing else, a more tangible memento of this adventure than Denny’s.

I do have to admit that the art on this series has definitely changed accordingly with Pulp Friction’s general tone, from Paul Smith’s rather sophisticated product to Bone’s completely comical, almost cute figures.  Close-ups of Spirit’s face reveal a shiny, almost reddish button-nose with chibi­-esque eyes; clearly, we’re not meant to take the story seriously under these circumstances.  Still, there’s a bright, peppy life to Bone’s work which makes the issue enjoyable to read, it not exactly sophisticated.

Conclusion: Entertaining in the most fleeting way possible, Pulp Friction hearkens back to a time when readers had simple enough tastes to be satisfied with such.

Grade: B-

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – So Ellen was pretty much useless in this entire story, right?

– Cliff blackmailing FDR about revealing the president’s polio in order to get his rocket tech back is probably one of the better, more darkly comedic bits in the issue.

– Does anybody else think it doesn’t bode well that only Betty’s acting career, not her love for Cliff, stops her from committing murder?