Forgetless #5 – Review

By: Nick Spencer (writer), Scott Forbes, Marley Zarcone & Jorge Coelho (art), Forbes, Zarcone & Eric Skillman (colors) & Johnny Lowe (letters)

The Story: The weirdness wraps up: Will the model/assassin girls kill the dude who “raped” a mannequin?  Will the sex addict, late night host dressed up in a koala costume die from his gunshot wounds?  Will the underage Jersey kids make it to the last Forgetless party?

What’s good: Nick Spencer has done a great job of STORYTELLING with this series as it wraps with its fifth issue.  You can just read what I indicated this series/issue was about in “The Story” and guess that I’d probably like it.  There is just a lot of weirdness that I dig in this comic, but what really sets it apart is that Spencer has told a good story instead of just smearing a bunch of weirdness around on the page.  All of the warped things that made me really like the earlier issues of this series are still here: like the two dudes who have hit-girls after them for “raping” a mannequin that this whacko couple were calling “their daughter”.  But this issue went beyond making me snicker about those sorts of plot elements: It made me happy as these various plots wrap up.  Pretty much all of the characters get a happy ending and that really made me smile.

This series was really a triumph of story-telling and condensed character development.  I loved the contrast between the wacky weirdness of the assassin/mannequin/koala story and the earnestness of the underage kids who just want to make it to the big party.

Artistically, this issue is quite different that the previous issues.  Gone is the Story A/Story B style and instead we get all three artists who have worked this series all smeared together.  I have to admit that I was worried about that when I looked at the opening credits, but it really came off well.  This art is just nice, simple and effective.  Perfect for this type of story.

Forgetless #4 – Review

By: Nick Spencer (script), Jorge Coelho (art on Story A), Eric Skillman (colors on Story A), Marley Zarcone (art & colors on Story B), Johnny Lowe (letters)

The Story: A lady-assassin, a sex-addict late-night host dressed in a Koala suit ,and a group of NJ teens attend the last Forgetless party in NYC.

What’s good: This comic is just different.  If you’re sometimes bored with reading mainstream superhero comics where you pretty much already know what will happen, try reading some of Nick Spencer’s stuff over at Image.  You may try it and it won’t be your thing, but it’s different and weird and you really have zero idea what will happen next.

Forgetless (so far) has always been split into two stories that are tied together by this all-night rave-type party called Forgetless.  The “Story A” explains why a famous late-night talk show host has ended up wearing a Koala suit and been shot in the alley outside the club.  Spencer’s description and Coelho’s drawings of this guy’s perversion are just really something else.  You certainly won’t see this kind of stuff in either a Marvel or DC book!  The Story B shows the kids of NJ finally getting to the party only to have their fake-IDs turned down.  This story has consistently been very solid, and reminds us all of what being a teenager feels like when left out of all the things the older 20-somethings were doing.

One thing I was very happy to see is that Spencer has now connected the two stories, so I’m very much looking forward to the last issue although I’m curious about how they’ll handle the art since the art on the two stories has been very different.