The latest issue of the Simpson’s Super Spectacular follows characters that each turned up on the TV show once and then disappeared, which should give you some indication of how thoroughly they’ve been developed. Although new issues of it don’t come along very often (they only turn up about every six months or so), you have to wonder what kind of thinking led to a comic-book series like this. Actually, with all the Simpsons merchandise out there, something this irrelevant was bound to hit comic-book stores sooner or later. That might explain all those Star Wars comic-book spinoffs, too.
With an overall length of only 27 pages, issue 11 comes with two stories involving superheroes, the first of which follows Homer Simpson’s alter-ego, Pieman. While on a mission to foil some criminals one day, he stumbles upon a bunch of other superheroes who are even more obsessed with pastries than he is. (They’ve managed to come up with more creative names, too: Colonel Custard, Captain Kidney Pie, etc.)
After they tell him all about the pie-related crimes that they’ve pledged to prevent, Pieman–along with his pintsized sidekick the Cupcake Kid, who bears a striking resemblance to a certain 10-year-old underachiever–agrees to give them a hand in their eccentric exploits. The fate of your local bakery may depend on them.
The next one catches up with Stretch Dude and Clobber Girl, a duo that Bart and Lisa Simpson started after acquiring superpowers. When Clobber Girl gets sick and needs time to recover–her doctor tells her that she’s contracted the “superflu,†which only superheroes are susceptible to–Stretch Dude attempts to go out and fight crime on his own. After it becomes clear that he can’t fight crime alone (his stretchable limbs are kind of a liability, especially when he gets near a pasta roller or a taffy puller), he gets help from another partner named Gluestick, a superhero that Lisa’s old boyfriend Ralph Wiggum turned into after eating some paste. Given some of the other school supplies he’s ingested over the years, it makes you wonder why he didn’t turn into a giant crayon instead.
If you’re still unclear on why this comic doesn’t work, it’s because the whole thing feels too much like a product–something to squeeze a few more bucks out of Simpsons fans. Although these characters helped spice things up on the TV show, everything they do in comic form feels so routine, as if there weren’t any particular need to do something new with them.
With six months to work on this stuff, you’d think they’d come up with something more interesting.
This article originally appeared on AllMediaNY.com
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