This is going to be a rant about Kindt’s Marketing Team and a rant about these pricy Three Issue Series drops that seem to becoming more and more popular in the monthly comic book publishing world. These pricy 3 issue drops? They need to stop. Unless you’re coming with the super rarefied genius that Black Label came with last year, y’all need to stop. Unless you’re dropping something comparable to the unbelievable majesty that was Aquaman: Andromeda, Catwoman: Lonely City or Wonder Woman: Historia – y’all need to stop trying to charge our geeky asses all this bank for these wack ass three issue mini-series. Just because you fluff up the page count and compress a story and hire someone who’s got credits doesn’t automatically make your 3 Issue Money Grab grabbable.
See, the prices on the aforementioned books were justified. Hell, I probably woulda paid more if they upped the prices for Books 1 & 2 of all three of those Black Label titles they were so ridiculously amazing. But if you think you can just mush your story into three jumbo sized issues because you wanna hurry it up so you can double up your return on the monthly and the trade within six months – slow your roll. Most of these 3 issue jumbo sized extra page count books – are butt. One of those butt books was this Spy Supreme trasharama.
Look, it’s not easy having a coherent, well paced story with well rounded characters that traverse a fulfilling arc replete with a twist and a payoff at the end in only three issues. It takes talent. It takes a smart efficient editorial team and most of all it takes a solid concept that has zero holes in it. Spy Supreme has more holes in it than a golf course. My little baby’s doggy poo bags are stronger than this book’s flimsy AF plot. I don’t get it. Like, why? I just spent 25 bones on this mini series and I would rather have paid for a fancy shmancy ridiculously priced controversially lauded burger at Father’s Office in Culver City than piss my hard earned comic book bux down the drain on this half baked swill from Kindt.
Kindt! WTF? Mind MGMT! Genius! Pure effin genius. We want more, obvi (that’s what the kids say these days, obvi, look how hip I am) but if you’re gonna dip your wick back in the spy game again homie you can’t just poop any old idea you came up with at one of your Eyes Wide Shut parties in Hollywood where you were being violated by a dozen masked women and Kathy Griffin dressed as Maleficent with a strap-on. Your premise is sound: unsuspecting yutz is one of a line of other unsuspecting yutzes who have the traits to act as an invincible useful idiot to carry out missions they’re not even aware of, great! But it’s one note, bro. You don’t have a story here and because it’s so poorly plotted your scribbly art looks even scribblier, it looks like toilet paper square art and doesn’t enhance the story at all like it did in your groundbreaking Mind MGMT opus.
You come up with some cool spy people especially Roche Chambeaux, the dude who’s a killer that rocks scissors, poisoned paper squares and fists of titanium – brilliant. But the whole story goes nowhere and is fugazi. I don’t buy for a second that this ‘Lucky’ spy chick fell for this guy. I don’t have any connection to why this dude is being used nor has it been reinforced by whom. I can’t for the life of me figure why they’re in New Zealand other than it’s far away, woop de doo. The environment plays zero of a character in the plot; it could be anywhere. Dude, Matt, bubbeleh, you can’t drop genius, become Hollywood and then drop poop. You’ll tank your career. People will soon figure out you’re a hack even if you’re not. You’re a year away from wandering around Abbot Kinney in Venice on an Art Walk Night looking like you’ve just been on a bender for a month in a youth hostel in Europe.
You know what’s really sad? I could’ve typed into ChatGPT ‘Hey, evil AI, write me an unbelievable sequel to Matt Kindt’s Mind MGMT’ and been given more of an entertaining read than this. Hell, it probably would’ve drawn your stuff to a tee. Hell, I could’ve told it to draw in the cast of the Muppets and taken this AI Comic to next level award material. You know what’s really sadder? I bet that’s already happening. I bet we’ve already read some AI Comics. I mean, do you really think DC & Marvisney that’s being run by corporate cost cutting overlords haven’t already experimented on some of its wacker titles that don’t sell very well by now? The crazy thing is in a couple of years we probably won’t be able to tell the difference if this AI thing goes unchecked; we’re literally on the threshold of making most artists obsolete.
Anyway, back to this three issue insanity. I just spent 30 bones on 3 issues of Superman: Space Age. As mentioned before by me, the Three Issue Gambit is brilliant by marketing standards. You have an idea with a hook. You drop a pricy oversized page count issue. It’s good enough to make anyone want to buy the second issue. The second issue is good but not great, in most cases it might even suck. When the third issue comes out you feel compelled to buy it because A. You already bought the first two B. Just because the second issue sucked doesn’t mean the third will and at this point you might as well find out how it ends.
Then it’s over and you’re like ‘What the hell just happened???’ You just paid for what you would have paid for 6 comics over the span of six months in 3 and yet you didn’t necessarily have a transcendent experience, dude, you just got three issue banged on the dance floor at a Molly Rave at the Avalon on Vine on a Monday Night. The Majestic Black Label Books of 2022 had a lot of time off between issues. One had to assume it was because they were putting a hell of a lot of work in to make those issues unbelievably undeniably great – and they were. Look at 'A Vicious Circle', that also is a 3 issue prestige drop but issue 2 hasn't come out yet and it's been 4 months since issue one. That tells me they're working hard on delivering the goods for issue 2. But this ‘Spy The Herb?’, turns out it was nothing more than a cog in the marketing scheme of the Kindt team.
Well looky looky at what we have here at the very end of this series plastered on the inside of the back cover:
Fifty Bux! My goodness. To be honest, this actually looks great, I mean, this looks waaaay better than the gobstopping swill I just ingested from this 3 issue drop. The more I look into it the more I wish I had bought this instead of these 3 comics. I wasn’t aware this was even out. So, again, Kindt/Dark Horse is trying to upsell you after a Mini-Series. They did with the Mind MGMT:Remix 4 issue series that was blah at best. That one seemed completely tailored as a hook for the Mind MGMT Boardgame, which cost $50 also. So these comics are just marketing tools for even more expensive purchases, they’re not comics for the sake of them being comics. Do you really think after reading two mediocre poorly thought out mini series that I’m going to be all hyped up to drop an extra $100 on more Mindless MGMT stuff? Like, ‘Hey, thanks for wasting $25! Here, drop another $50 on this!’ Dude. C’mon. I mean, if this was a great Mini Series or even a great 6 issues I might consider it but after pooping on three of my mornings with this caca I’m not really inclined to spend more, capische?
Like, Saga puts out perfect issues every month and then is like, ‘Hey, we have merch if you want it’. Great! I’ll check that out, might even buy some. Or if Lemire or Bendis drops six dope issues in a row and the publisher is like ‘Hey, look at all the other stuff this dude wrote’. Great! I might check that out and buy it too. But this just feels like a comic book hook. Like, I didn’t even know about the board game and this book to begin with, but now I do, after paying $40 between the two series. That makes me feel yucky. Like, either market it properly to people in the game and trade market or pump out some bad ass quality engaging books that would pique my interest for more.
Matt, bubbeleh, I get it, LA is expensive. Can’t find a decent cup coffee for less than $8 after a tip. Power Bills are more expensive than your TV & Phone bills combined. You can’t eat out without at least dropping $30-40 per person, and that’s at a chintzy taco spot in Mar Vista. But dude, you’re doing it ass backwards. Star Wars releases Star Wars and then says buy the action figures. You’re selling the action figures before the movie homie. Get your shit correct. You officially get the ‘Stink Eye’ next time I see something that is in the solicits from you. Hey, it’s baseball season…
Cause it’s One. Two. Three Issues and you’re Out of $$$ in the Ol’ Comic Game!
Rating: 5.7
Verdict: SMH
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