The story which had been going in Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker last time I checked in resolved with a dead body in the woods. It’s the not-shot, not-stabbed body of the last known patsy of Ann Parker, who was the last person we the readers saw with him pre-dead. Ann Parker disappeared from the comic at this point, and the coroner’s report was “?”. So there is good reason to think she did it, but there’s quite a shroud of ambiguity around it.
Are you reading this after about August 2024, and hoping to figure out what’s happening in Judge Parker? There’s probably the plot recap you’re looking for here. If you’re looking for mid-May 2024, try reading what’s coming up next paragraph.
Judge Parker.
18 February – 11 May 2024.
Francesco Marciuliano brought his characters to a good solid situation shortly after the menacing Harrison forced Ann Parker to go with him to get money from Alan Parker. Detective (liquid) Yelich spotted this and called Randy Parker to raise the alarm. And now the situation: Harrison realizes the Parkers anticipated his arrival. How? He reasons the cops have surrounded the place. Alan and Randy don’t, and have no idea what he’s so jumpy about. A tense bunch of people all misapprehending what everyone else is on about, is a great situation. You can almost envision the Coen Brothers building a film around that scene.
So why am I not happy, besides the whole world at this point? In re Judge Parker, it’s because Marciuliano’s tenure has been one that’s all great situations, but no development. We have here Ann Parker returned from Comic Strip Exile after like sixty years because she needs money because (reason) and she’s in trouble with (person) but (other person) is searching for her. And then (other person) is scared off and (person) is gone and Ann Parker disappears again.
The weak developing of situations is odd as Marciuliano’s other project, Sally Forth, is nothing but great development. The relationship between Sally and Ted Forth and their respective mothers are full of substance in a way that April Parker’s final(?) farewell to her mother can’t be.
Anyway, Ann Parker. She realizes as long as Harrison thinks there are cops watching, she can just run away, and goes into the woods. There she meets Don Barnes, who’d tried to hire Sam Driver to find Ann. She mourns her off-screen foolishness and talks of maybe stopping running, and there’s some shouting. Next thing we see, Barnes is dead, killed by the story having nothing else for him to do, and Ann Parker is missing and the only logical suspect. Also Yelchin is put back on duty so he won’t have to call on friends at the Department of Backstory anymore, he’ll be one of them.
We get a two-month time jump and hear that Alan Parker’s going nuts asking everyone if they’ve seen his daughter and if they know she didn’t kill that guy. Randy, as a guy who’s been on both the searching and the missing sides of the mysterious-disappearance plot, talks Alan into a denouement at least. They’ll see Ann when she’s good and ready to be seen and that’s that.
The 25th of March started the next story, recently concluded, with April Parker being driven crazy by someone who will not stop calling her. When strangers at the Acme supermarket tell her to take the call, she gives in. It’s Pavel Lebedev, seen last year failing to get Sam Driver to bring April Parker’s mother in. Just an observation here, Sam Driver’s got a pretty rotten track record on bringing in missing persons. Maybe he’s really good at property boundary disputes or something.
Anyway, Lebedev still wants Parker’s mother, Helena Bowers or possibly Bowen. Bowerns had faked her own death, and Lebedev (of course) had a guy on the inside of Super Duper CIA Jail to help her sneak out, but she double-crossed him and so on. Here I’m sulking because all the April Parker, Helena Bowers, and Norton Dumont stuff is based on this ultra super hyper extra-competent Secret Agent super-doublecross stuff. I don’t believe in the super-competent spy and I have increasing trouble getting into any story where we’re supposed to take it seriously. Anyway they can turn over Bowerns, whom April Parker has no information about, or die, whatever.
So here’s the situation. Helena Bowerns pops in to explain they’re going to give Lebedev exactly what he wants: her, bound and gagged and helpless before his cheerful villainy. (He is one of the merriest heavies since Roquat the Red, King of the Nomes.) The only catch is that she has (of course) a guy on the inside of Lebedev’s organization. That guy, Rurik, is happy to drive off with Lebedev’s daughter Alina, taking her out of range of the plot-detonating bomb he’d put under Lebedev’s house.
So Lebedev is dead in victory, Bowerns is dead and buried and now … well, April Parker’s quit the CIA for real this time she swears. Her mother Bowerns is in the grave. Her father Norton Dumont seems to be pretty solidly dead as well, suggesting maybe an end to the super-spy shenanigans? I’m skeptical, but I was sure we’d be seeing Dumont after he stood up to face his death at Bowerns’s hands, so what do I know?
The 5th of May started the new story, whatever it is exactly. Neddy Spencer is engaged to this guy Declan she met at Ronnie’s wedding. And Sophie and her roommate Reena want to do something fun in New York City of all places.
Next Week!
How’s Olive Oyl doing teaching the kids these days how to ferry souls to the underworld? How’s Popeye doing letting the Katzenjammer Kids loose on a world that has enough problems? Emi Burdge and Randy Milholland’s Olive and Popeye gets some attention from me, is the plan.
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Another Blog, Meanwhile 
Ann Parker is the pseudonym used by both Ann Page and Jane Parker, notorious members of the now-defunct A&P Gang.
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April is still bored. The game is on!
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