Sweet Tooth #10 – Review

by Jeff Lemire (writer & artist), Jose Villarrubia (colors), and Pat Brosseau (letters)

The Story: Singh uses hypnosis to lead Gus through his past on a search for answers.

What’s Good: After falling just the tiniest bit short of his usual gold standard last month, Lemire kicks us in the teeth with one of his best issues of Sweet Tooth yet.

Lemire removes Jepperd this month, allowing for a more focused issue that develops the relationship between Singh and Gus.  What makes this so superb, and so intriguing, is that Lemire returns to the juxtaposition between science and the humanities.  In my usage of the word “humanities,” I mean that which escapes the dull rationalism of scientific figures:  religion, emotion, and childhood innocence in the case of Sweet Tooth.

The conflict between these two sides becomes a major, yet subtle, theme as Singh struggles to probe through Gus’ memories.  He repeatedly, almost desperately, asks Gus whether there are any scientific instruments, numbers, or notations in the cabin of his youth, and each time he is befuddled when told that this is not the case.  The cabin is a science-free zone dominated by bizarre mix of zealous religion and childhood experience and, as such, both Gus and his father reject science as the evil justifications and misguided machinations of sinful men.  The result is a sense of Singh’s inability to understand Gus’ world.  There must be a scientific explanation for Gus’ existence, but there is simply no evidence to support this no matter how much Singh desires it.  Eventually, Singh even falls to cynicism; for lack of empirical evidence, he believes Gus’ mother to have never existed.  Of course, at issue’s end, he is proven dead wrong.

Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

DS’ Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Green Lantern #54 – Out of a very solid week (my reviews were, unusually, B’s and A’s), Green Lantern takes the crown. Hal Jordan, arguing and bickering with Sinestro and Carol Ferris, while they all try to figure out an impending doom, was just awesome. And the collection of the entities from the different batteries cranked up the tension and mystery. Tune into Brightest Day!

Most Anticipated: Brightest Day #3: The last installments of the Brightest Day event (GL #54 and GLC #48) have me chomping at the bit to see what happens next.

Other Top Picks: Red Robin #13, Red Hood: Lost Days #1 (of 6), Adventure Comics #12, Thanos Imperative #1, Avengers Prime #1, Darkstar and the Winter Guard #1

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Madame Xanadu #23 – A solid conclusion to a really fun arc.  Great art and continual little winks and nods to its readership make for a great time, along with a cast that is universally lovable.

Most Anticipated: iZombie #2 -With a first issue that was almost entirely introduction and set-up, I don’t think we’ve really gotten enough to sink are teeth into from iZombie.  Hopefully this issue will give us more to gauge.  For this reason, this issue carries much of the same excitement for me that #1 did.

Other Picks: Brightest Day #2, Sweet Tooth #10

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Amazing Spider-Man #632 – A combination of GREAT art with a really nice reimagining of a classic Spider-man rogue (The Lizard) to make him much scarier than he used to be.  ASM has been on a great run for the last 6 months or so.

Most Anticipated: The Thanos Imperative #1 – I was looking forward to Thanos Imperative: Ignition last week and it was really good.  Marvel doesn’t keep us waiting by bringing out the first issue of the Cosmic event this week.  I can’t wait.  This will be the first book out of the stack this week!

Other picks: Red Robin #13, I, Zombie #2, Dust Wars #1, Bulletproof Coffin #1, Avengers Prime #1