Spencer & Locke #2 Review

Writer: David PeposeArtist: Jorge Santiago Jr.Publisher: Action Lab ComicsRelease Date: May 31, 2017Cover Price: $3.99

The debut of David Pepose’s Spencer & Locke was a delight that’s had me ready to jump back into the series as soon as possible. With a noir style tale spawning from a Calvin & Hobbes like childhood friendship turned dark, we get a funny and twisted adventure that has me curious where it goes next. So jump below the break and see just where the series takes us next.

We jump off with the younger sunday funny’s end of the story as Spencer and Locke hear their teenage babysitter getting hot and heavy in the next room and where we usually get the ‘funny’s’ we instead take a turn as a kid loses their childhood innocence. As that’s just about to happen we go to black and fade in from the perspective of Stanley, the victim’s boyfriend now Locke’s captive, with a glimpse of the real Spencer before Locke get’s busy enacting his form of interrogation.

With information leading to the local strip club, Spencer and Locke head off for where the case leads them next. We get a bit of background for the type of clientele and the reputation that comes with the Red Rose before some shenanigans leads to Locke getting his way into the strip club’s office. Which is where we find out Locke’s once babysitter is now the owner or at least manager of the Red Rose, most notable takeaway from this exchange is what happens to Spencer. Upon sight of Ramona Spencer appears to fade away, which seems to tell me that this character steals that childhood innocence away from Locke even to this day in such a way that his imaginary friend, that has kept with him all this time, consequently fades away. It’s a nice touch that upon first reading really didn’t hit me.

We had caught a glimpse of Hero, the victim’s daughter, in the club being held captive earlier but it’s at this time she gets the ability to squirm away enough to make a sound the Locke hears. It’s at this point that we finally get any kind of follow-up to the previous issue’s cliffhanger which honestly leaves me a bit disappointed because of how much it seems to unload in those final pages. Locke heads off in pursuit of Hero as the captors are quickly able to jump in a car and run with Hero now being tied and gagged(they work fast while running).

The rest of the issue wraps up with a car chase with a twist or two but without spoilers there’s not much to really recap. Overall this issue was a bit of a disappointment after the first issue. It still had the mix of humor and twisted-ness that I liked in the first issue, but without following up to much from the first issue and mostly revolving around a one-off character it felt like the issue was mostly used as a bridge between the two separate story lines from the first issue. By the end of the issue I’m left mostly in the same anticipation I was left after the last, but hey it did have some dark comedy.

Bits and Pieces:

While this issue delivers on the promised dark humor and gives us some possible insight to the limits of Spencer, it fails to follow up on the cliffhanger set before it and ends up feeling a little disappointing.

7.2/10