What’s Going On In Judge Parker? How did Sam figure out everything about Ma Parker’s operation? September – November 2023

Sam Driver and Gloria Shannon managed to extract the strip, for now, from both Pavel Lebedev’s crime family thingy and the CIA’s scrutiny. This by trading to them all the data available about Ma Parker — Helena Bowen, I learned her name was — and her own international crime racket. This is information neither group could get on their own; so, how did Sam Driver and Gloria Shannon find it?

Ma Parker gave it to them. Yeah, this isn’t said explicitly. But we’re told Helena Bowen wanted to get April Parker her own life back. And that Bowen and Sam Driver planned out the resolution we saw. This isn’t the simplest case for Inspector Bazalo, but it’s also not his toughest case.

So this should catch you up to late November 2023 in Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker. If you’re reading this after about February 2024 I keep all my plot recaps at this link, so there may be a more current one available. Also news, as for example James Bret Blevins’s taking over the art for Judge Parker while Mike Manley recovers from hospitalization. Hoping he’ll be all right soon.

Judge Parker.

3 September – 25 November 2023.

I last checked in just as a chance(?) car accident landed Sam and Abbey in the clutches of Pavel Lebedev, who’s threatening the entire cast with death unless Driver turns over April Parker’s mother. After a several month jump, the moment came. Sam Driver gets the call. Helena Bowen is at her daughter’s house. The plan is on.

Suspended Detective Yelich knows nothing of Driver and Shannon’s plan. Neither does April Parker. And neither do the readers. This is the part that left me unsatisfied. It’s exciting watching a risky plan swing into action, but if you don’t have any idea what the plan is, you can’t know whether it’s going wrong and whether our heroes are in unexpected danger. It all goes to plan, so far as I have any idea what the plan was.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 9th of October, 2023. I have fallen out of the habit of reading the comics snark blogs regularly (just no time, lately), but I’m going ahead and guessing that a lot of merriment was made with Yelchin wanting to know how he’s in the dark, possibly with comparisons drawn to the readers being in the dark and maybe Marciuliano himself being in the dark about what was happening and why. Anyway, good narrator work that first panel there.

What the plan was: Sam Driver escorts Helena Bowen out of April Parker’s house, wehre Lebedev’s man can see him doing that. But, since the CIA’s been watching the Parkers’ house, they arrest Bowen, and Sam Driver, first. Lebedev’s man reports Driver’s failure, in time for Shannon to taser him senseless and throw him in Yelich’s trunk.

They race to Lebedev’s mansion and offer a trade. A USB drive with a full map of all Helena Bowen’s organization in it, in trade for being let alone. Lebedev confirms enough of the information to believe the rest. And he says it’s a deal, which Shannon and so Driver believe, for some reason. Word goes out to all the cast to come out of hiding. This seems premature to me, but I guess Marciuliano knows how dangerous things really are for them.

Meanwhile in super-secret ultra hyper CIA jail, Sam Driver bargains for his freedom with the same data. Lebedev is sure to go after Helena Bowen’s operation, and here’s her operation. They can make a deal, right? And while the CIA has both Sam Driver and his USB drive, they agree to let him go, albeit under heavy scrutiny. There’s a similar arrangement between April Parker and Agent Shadewrap.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley and James Bret Blevins’s Judge Parker for the 16th of November, 2023. What I would have liked to know is whether Bowen approached Driver, or whether Driver found some way to contact her. We’re given a motive for Bowen to turn herself in — regrets at the end of her life, wanting her daughter to have a life with her own child — but not why this became something she acted on. Given we’re told Yelchin did some work, it would make sense if Driver et al found how to contact Bowen and pressed her to a decision. But I don’t know, and I wonder if Marciuliano does.

So as of this week, April and Randy Parker are back together at home again. The extra cast are also back, or going back, to their homes. And Sam Driver and Abbey Spencer are reunited, and all it took was several months of terror.

Incidentally: so, was the car accident that first brought Sam and Abbey to Peter Lebedev’s attention legit? Or was it staged so the two wouldn’t have reason to question how they ended up on the hook for April Parker’s mother? I can see a case to make either way. If the accident was an accident then Lebedev put together his blackmail plan in the time it took to drive his daughter home. If it wasn’t an accident then we have to wonder who volunteered to crash his car into the one other car on the road. Not unthinkable, especially if the accident was worse than it was supposed to be. The guy getting eaten by a bear has to have been an unplanned accident either way.

Next Week!

After Lebedev realizes Sam Driver gave all this same information to the CIA and orders the entire cast killed? I take on some more lighthearted fare with ghosts and a monster-abuser in Shadia Amin, Emi Burdge, and Randy Milholland’s Olive and Popeye. Don’t miss it!

What’s Going On In Judge Parker? Is everyone in Judge Parker stupid? June – September 2023

No, absolutely not. And I think even people who can’t stand Francesco Marciuliano’s characterizations would agree that the characters are, at least, presented with rather good emotional intelligence, which maybe the most important kind. Still, the last couple months of story hinge on characters making decisions that the uninvolved onlooker might call wrong.

But these are also decisions characters made in the immediate aftermath of a car crash, one that totalled both cars. Even the smartest of us will be off their game right after that. And even if one is smart, one sometimes makes mistakes, especially in unfamiliar circumstances. I’ll get to the curious mistakes in time, but I also want to flag that just because a character screws up doesn’t mean they, or their author, is stupid.

I hope this catches you up to early September 2023 in Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker. If you’re reading this after about December 2023, there’s most likely a more up-to-date plot recap here. Thanks for checking in right now, though.

Judge Parker.

11 June – September 2, 2023.

Abbey and Sam were smooching again. It’s part of a whirlwind of ambivalence both feel about splitting up over a freak event. Sam suggests, and Abbey accepts, a romantic getaway. Or at least a getaway, in a remote cabin beyond the real of cell phones, Wi-Fi, or anything but the chance to figure if they do want to be fighting.

They’re barely outside cell phone range when their car smashes into another. Sam insists the other driver swerved into them. It seems unlikely to be on purpose. The other driver flees the car. In the backseat is an unconscious child. Sam decides on the best of their limited options: leave a note, take the child, and hike the fifteen or so miles to their cabin. There’s a land line there that should work. Not considered: hike the mile or two back to where there’s cell phone service. It’s a mistake, but one that’s very easy to make in the circumstances. They’d been heading to the cabin, they think of the cabin as safety, so the decision was made without being thought out.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 27th of July, 2023. Meanwhile, here, given the information Sam and Abbey have? I think they made the best choice they could have. Possibly walking back to where there was cell signal would have been wiser, although in that case the kidnapper would still have got them and they wouldn’t have been saved by the bear. Maybe by Mr Grey, though.

Another thing not thought out: what is a kid going to think when they regain consciousness being hauled into the woods by strangers? They’re going to run away, of course, dashing any hopes of getting to the cabin before it’s too dark. Sam and Abbey try and explain that they only took her because her father was gone. The kid says she wasn’t being driven by her father but by someone who works for him: “he was going to make my dad pay”.

So, a kidnapper. Who has now come back, ready to grab the girl again. Not answered: why did he run away from the car without the kid, only to come back for the kid? Since we know so little about the kidnapper’s personality, or available information, it’s hard to say. My best guess is he panicked after the crash and then tried to put something back together. It’s also not clear why he drove the car into Sam and Abbey’s. But if he was fleeing with the kid, and thought nobody was ever on this road, the accident is understandable.

The kidnapper’s facing them now, though. Abbey thought she heard something following them in the woods as they searched for the kid. It wasn’t the kidnapper. What she heard was a bear. The kidnapper did not learn the lesson of Mark Trail’s story about Sid Stump and his bear-fighting ranch. That lesson, you’ll recall, is “don’t get eaten by a bear”.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 28th of July, 2023. “So you say Francesco Marciuliano started out writing the humor comics, huh?”

While fleeing from this trauma Sam almost runs into a car. It’s driven by Mr Grey, the stepfather of Gunther over in Luann. The kid — Alina — recognizes him as Lev, someone who has something to do with her father. Lev Grey drives them all to the overly-guarded mansion of Alina’s father, Pavel. Pavel may or may not have a last name. He does have an oppressively jovial sense of hospitality, and gratitude for saving his child. He’s already learned something about Sam and Abbey, from the note left on the wrecked car, and has decided to give them a job. He wants them to bring someone close to them to him. He shows the picture. It’s Wally West. They have no idea who this is.

Pavel showed the wrong picture. He wants April Parker’s Mother. She’s murdered enough people in Pavel’s criminal organization he wants revenge. But with the CIA watching April Parker’s family around the clock, they can’t grab her. Ah, but if Sam and Abbey happen to see Ma Parker there? And take her to somewhere that Pavel’s men can kill her? Yes, that’s what their job is now.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 20th of August, 2023. I don’t know why Pavel assumes that Ma Parker is going to come to her daughter’s house. Anyway, between the Deputy Mayor’s drone coverup thing, and maybe making the deal with Norton to get Alan Parker out of jail (I forget if it was him or Randy Parker and it’s too hot and muggy to check my notes) and now this, Sam Driver is finally a compromised enough attorney that Rudy Giuliani is telling him to unwind some of this, fast.

Mr Grey brings Sam and Abbey back home, which is probably as well for their romantic getaway. They have no idea what to say about being roped into a crime spree like this. Sam consults Suspended Detective Yelich, who’s still got friends at the Federal Department of Backstory. Turns out Pavel might not have a last name after all, but he’s got enough of a crime network that he’s incredibly dangerous to cross, and any of Sam and Abbey’s family is likely in danger too. There’s nothing they can do besides sit tight, play along, and hope that Francesco Marciuliano jumps the action ahead enough months, see if maybe Marie or Sophie’s roommate from college is running for Mayor of Cavelton. And that’s where we are now.

Next Week!

Olive Oyl died! So what’s she doing with the rest of her life? I’m looking at Shadia Amin and Randy Milholland’s Olive and Popeye next week, is my plan. But we know what happens to plans.

What’s Going On In Judge Parker? Why is April Parker out of CIA jail? March – June 2023

A shade-wrapped CIA agent offered April Parker her freedom last month in Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker. She accepted. April Parker has obvious reasons not to want to be in Secret CIA Jail for spy crimes. Agent Shadewrap’s motives are revealed to us, and to her assistant. She has some kind of special job she wants April Parker to volunteer for. Shadewrap also wants Parker to feel she has no choice but to work for her. So April Parker has to give up on her outside life, which won’t happen while April fantasizes about being free and having everything go swell. So this release is meant to drive April into despair. Also the arms of yet another CIA type building their little fiefdom of personally-loyal operatives.

This should catch you up to mid-June 2023 in Judge Parker, your home for comic strip couples awkwardly reconnecting. If you’re reading this after about September 2023 there should be a more up-to-date recap here. I’ll also pu any news I hear about the comic at that link. And if you’d like a link for all my story strip recaps, here it is. I hope hat helps you following things.

Judge Parker.

19 March – 10 June 2023.

In the epilogue to the previous story, Abbey Spencer took in Eric Duncan, sole survivor of Judge Duncan’s murder spree. He does well with the horses. And Abbey likes having traumatized foundlings around again, now that Neddy’s in Los Angeles and Sophie’s in college.

Neddy, in Los Angeles, is torn between emotional peaks. Her and Ronnie’s show was cancelled, just as the series about the secret life of April Parker was in preproduction. But Ronnie and Katherine Bryson married at last. And a guy who seems pleasant but is named ”Declan” talks with her. No signal where that’s leading.

Francesco Marciuliani and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 3rd of April, 2023. Ronnie is right about this not being the moment, but I do believe in Neddy as someone who can’t wait for an appropriate moment when her brain is on a Mission.

Sam Driver, in-between finding excuses to hang out at Abbey’s, partners with Gloria Shannon for his … investigative lawyer stuff or whatever he does. And Shannon, showing remarkable grace toward a guy who got her husband killed, suggests hiring the suspended Detective Yelich. They need help with some client we haven’t heard anything more about.

So what have we been hearing more about? Shade-wrapped agents in CIA Secret Prison, for one. Agent Shadewrap, who’d arranged April Parker’s arrest, has an offer for the framed super-hyper-ultra agent. The CIA, in their first intelligence screwup and boggling failure of oversight in history, missed April Parker passing her cache of secret documents to Randy Parker. That cache was what Neddy and Ronnie used to start their second season. The CIA, having finally got around to their Tubi account, discovered the show and wants it buried. Leaning on the producers to cancel the show is easy enough. For April Parker, though …

Francesco Marciuliani and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 22nd of April, 2023. This has got me wondering what kind of protective case they’ve put on that Secret CIA Prison phone there.

Agent Shadewrap’s offer is April Parker can go free. If she can keep her mouth shut about all this, then they’ll find a use for her talents. Or she can stay in Secret Prison forever. April accepts the offer and calls Randy Parker, who … can’t talk right this minute. This was, for me, the high point of the story as it’s the sort of fumbling awkward thing that’s comic yet real. Randy doesn’t want to talk to April, agenda unknown, while Charlotte can hear. (She hears anyway.) It takes longer than April and Agent Shadewrap figure for him to drop Charlotte with his father and get some privacy. Good comic action there.

Less comic: Charlotte doesn’t want anything to do with her mother. Randy says she needs time, and leaves her with Abbey, who’s really getting back into foundling-care. But April sees Charlotte’s point. She despairs that between the whole CIA thing and then taking Randy and Charlotte to live in secret with her mother for a year has wrecked life forever. This we learn was Agent Shadewrap’s plan: when April learns there’s nothing for her on the outside, she’ll be a wholly committed Sith Agent.

Francesco Marciuliani and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 28th of May, 2023. Is … is that Secret CIA Guy there playing Neopets? Is that how he’s staying awake in that dark room listening to people he doesn’t know all day?

Is the plan going wrong? Because Charlotte nags Abbey to bring her back home, and Randy sees this as a family triumph. It’s not smooth, but April has reason for hope.

Meanwhile Abbey, enjoying the part of kids where you interact with them for a while and then they go home, turns the Spencer Ranch into a day camp. The first day goes great, and Sophie comes in to talk about how terrified the kids are of horses to find Abbey and Sam making out. And that’s where we stand in mid-June.

Next Week!

I wasn’t sure all that much was happening in Shadia Amin and Randy Milholland’s Olive and Popeye … but then something startling dropped today. So I’ll look at that twice-a-week strip next week, if all goes to plan. I mean my plan. Anyone else’s plan is their business.

What’s Going On In Judge Parker? Who’s drawing Judge Parker now? May – July 2022

Mike Manley again, if you’re reading this after about the end of July 2022. D D Degg at The Daily Cartoonist reports that Manley’s work for the weekday strip should resume the 25th of July. Sunday strips, produced farther in advance, will likely take a little longer.

Meanwhile, Scott Cohn, comic book artist with a lot of Marvel and DC work, has been filling in. Cohn has also been doing fill-in work on The Phantom. Cohn has been putting glorious black-and-white prints of his Phantom work on his DeviantArt gallery.

So this should catch you up to mid-July 2022 in Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley and Scott Cohn’s Judge Parker. If you’re reading this after about October 2022 or more news about the strip breaks I should have a more useful essay here. Now to catch up.

Judge Parker.

1 May – 17 July 2022.

So as sometimes happens the comic strip did its own pretty good plot recap, the 26th of June. The Sunday strip has the vibe of something put together to give the artist time to catch up, but it does also advance the story. And it makes a good jumping-off point. There are two major threads going on right now. Let me take them separately.

Francesco Marciuliani and Scott Cohn’s Judge Parker for the 26th of June, 2022. I see the occasional snarky comment about how the story’s become incomprehensible. But a perfectly adequate recap like this needing only five panels shows that comics snarkers are maybe not always reading with a reasonable charity.

Randy Parker has readjusted to his normal life fitfully at best. Mostly he wants to not talk about the year he spent on the lam with April Parker and her mother. When Alan Parker insists on talking about how April emotionally abused Randy he throws his father out of the house. This sets Alan to fighting with his wife when she tries to get him to acknowledge Randy’s side of things.

One of Marciuliano’s strengths writing has been how his characters can with justice say how others are being the jerks here. It’s a good handle on motivation even if the result is a lot of unhappy scenes prone to yelling. He’s also good at the dynamic where people ask you to see the other person’s side, as though you wouldn’t be on your own side if you were aware of the other.

So he invites Neddy Spencer for a talk. Her streaming TV show about April Parker and Godiva Danube became a hit as the CIA grabbed their rogue agent. She needs material for a second season. She was thinking of April’s story hiding from the law. Randy offers something far better. April Parker’s troubles began when a rogue CIA faction suborned her into doing evil spy stuff for them instead of the CIA’s main evil spy stuff. All the agents of that rogue faction are dead, by her hands or by her father Norton’s. But April Parker has data on the whole operation, as best she could put it together. And, great news for TV production, libel laws don’t apply to the dead. So they can make a show about this and clear April Parker’s name in the Court of Public Opinion, if not in the Star Chamber courts.

Francesco Marciuliani and Scott Cohn’s Judge Parker for the 10th of July, 2022. Gads, we had better operational security at my undergraduate student newspaper and the nearest we ever did to something that could get us in trouble was saying the Board of Governors sucked.

I admit to tripping on this plot point. Not Randy’s giving this data to Neddy rather than a journalist. That I can understand. I don’t see how the CIA has allowed Randy Parker to have a hard drive of data from April Parker. I’m not even sure how she would have gotten it to him; his leaving their safe house was a surprise thing done (to him) on the spur of the moment. I have to imagine that the super-ultra-duper secret agents already know of and have copies of this hard drive. So they must have let Randy have this for reasons of their own. I don’t see what those are, but I’m willing to let the story unfold.

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The other thread regards Abbey Spencer. She was cleared from suspicion of burning down her failed bed-and-breakfast when Deputy Mayor Stewart turned against his boss. Except her husband, Sam Driver, has suspicions, because Stewart shared a drone video showing Abbey setting fire to the building. Stewart’s bought Driver’s support for usurping his boss by burying the video.

Sam doesn’t really believe the footage is real. But what if it is? That’s been twisting him for months. Sophie Spencer, home from college, lets Neddy in on this secret. She also lets in her college roommate Reena, who’d invited herself to the Spencers’ place. I cannot imagine being a person like Reena, but I understand there are people like that. (I feel it’s too forward of me to call Marciuliano “Ces” the way all the successful comics bloggers seem to.) And it does some good in providing exposition that reinforces what readers might have forgotten about the situation.

Neddy cuts the Gordian knot of whether the footage is real by asking her video editor friend Brad … I’m going to say ‘Gordian’ … what he thinks. He thinks it’s all but certainly fake. They share the good news with Sam, who goes off to yell at Now Mayor Stewart. Stewart laughs him off: so what that it was fake? Sam acted on the presumption it was true and what is he going to do, blow up his marriage by telling Abbey what he thinks she would do? So Sam goes to blow up his marriage by telling Abbey about the footage and what he thought.

Francesco Marciuliani and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 11th of June, 2022. It’s interesting that Mayor Stewart didn’t try to insist the video was real, or that he believed it was. Driver might not have bought it, but the attempt might have confused the issue. Or might have made Driver say who revealed the fake and how. (Driver didn’t know, but Stewart couldn’t know that.) It is not a plot hole that Stewart didn’t do that, understand, since not every character has to be the craftiest version of themselves at every moment. But Stewart must have had some idea what to say if Driver decided the video was fake, and he had settled on something like this. (Or he didn’t have a better idea.)

Here, I admit, I’m not sure I follow the motivation. I get Sam’s. But the implication is Stewart used what he knew to be fake video to get Sam Driver’s support in throwing Mayor Sanderson out of office. I don’t see why Stewart needed to buy Sam’s support here. It’s like giving me ten thousand dollars so I’ll go play pinball Tuesday night. I get Stewart wanting a strong ally in Sam Driver and Abbey Spencer. But he’d have that anyway for getting Mayor Sanderson out of office. And he has to have anticipated that Sam would learn, or decide, the video was fake. And, as Sophie observes, whoever faked the video can blackmail Stewart at any time. (I had thought we saw Stewart discovering the footage, but I seem to be wrong.) Also, please give me ten thousand dollars to play pinball Tuesday night.

Sam goes to talk with Abbey about the video in a scene we don’t see. We stick instead on Sophie and Neddy and Reena waiting for news. It’s suspenseful, and ominous, although I understand people for whom it doesn’t work. One of Marciuliano’s regular tricks on this strip has been to jump ahead three months and fill in the aftermath of some big event, rather than show it. This comes close to being that. I understand Marciuliano’s desire, to keep us off-screen and go to characters reacting, but it keeps us from seeing a juicy fight.

Sam texts Neddy that Abbey stormed out. The people we were watching rush home and Sam mourns that Abbey has given up on the town and the family. He mourns that everyone was right, he should have told Abbey about the video the moment he saw it. Abbey, after demanding to know how long everyone else knew about this video, disappears. Neddy calls in an expert on fixing their family: Marie, their trusty … uh … maid? Or former maid, anyway. Last we saw her she was working part-time at the bed-and-breakfast but I imagine it’d be impolite if she were still drawing a salary for that.

Francesco Marciuliani and Scott Cohn’s Judge Parker for the 14th of July, 2022. In fairness to Sam, an honest conversation would have required him answering the questions, “Why did you believe the footage was real just because Stewart said it was? Is it just because I’m still the most logical suspect? Since the alternative is someone trying to bust up my marriage for no good reason — oh, good grief, it’s my half-sister Senna Lewiston back from the dead, isn’t it?”

Marie is able to get Abbey on the phone, and they meet for a talk at some restaurant carefully ignoring them. Marie tries to suggest Abbey consider Sam’s point of view, but Abbey knows it. And she’s more interested in how Sam hurt her — rather than have a direct if frightening conversation with her — than in how he feels. I can’t argue with that. Marie can’t either. Given this, she plans to leave Sam. She may leave Cavelton entirely. It’s hard to say she’s wrong to plan this.

Next Week!

What do Leonardo da Vinci and a gigantic crow have in common? That they’re not in the current story in Jonathan Lemon and Joey Alison Sayers’s Alley Oop! But they are in the story just concluded, which I plan to recap next week. Thanks for reading.

What’s Going On In Judge Parker? Where did Randy Parker vanish to? March – June 2021

We don’t know! The past few months of Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker saw a crazification, where what had been a stable arrangement blew up. It’s too soon to say where Randy Parker, April Parker, and their daughter Charlotte are. Nor whether they’re going to run into Ted Forth and shock him by being The Chadwells.

This should catch you up to early June 2021. If you’re reading this after about September 2021, or any news about the strip breaks, I’ll try to have an essay at this link which might help you more.

Judge Parker.

14 March – 5 June 2021.

Charlotte Parker was seeing her mother walk by the house every day. This perturbed her father, Randy Parker, because April was off in Super Hyper Ultra Duper Spy Assassin World. It’s a dangerous world, one in which we’re likely to run into Norton, even though April Parker said on-screen that he’s dead. (Norton will never be dead.) Retired Judge Alan Parker asked Sam Driver to check. Is April Parker lurking around her (ex?)-husband’s home, and if so, why? And this leads to a day in which everything happens at once.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 24th of March, 2021. Abbey Spencer has to spend some part of her day wondering why Mayor Sanderson isn’t always dealing with never-suspected evil half-siblings and ultra-hyper-super-duper assassins and drug-dealer starlets and stuff, right? Why does he get to just sit back and do Stephen Colbert Eyebrow Push-Ups at his staff?

The easy stuff, first. Cavelton’s reelected crazypants mayor Phil Sanderson sent out the new property taxes. They include punitive tax hikes on his political opponents, such as Abbey Spencer. This seems like something one could challenge in court. But Sanderson’s already looking ahead to his third term in office. Also to changing the town laws so he can serve a third term. Deputy Mayor Stewart, who I bet has a second name, takes this news with a sequence of faces of pouty concern.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 4th of April, 2021. “It’s all happening”; hold that thought.

Second, and happy news: Neddy Spencer and Ronnie Huerta’s series got picked up! The show is based on what they imagine the April Parker/Godiva Danube relationship was like. It’s to run on a streaming service that exists in the minds of its investors. Still, a show credit is a show credit. They call that in to home as everything else explodes.

Now the explosions. Almost all the past three months of Judge Parker took place over a single day. Sam Driver, staking out Randy’s home, sees who he thinks is April Parker. He chases her, until a bicyclist accidentally collides with him. The bicyclist has nothing to do with anything and is happy to leave when the woman draws a knife on him. The woman is not April Parker. She’s Rogue Agent Strand, former partner to Norton and a woman who looks rather like April.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 3rd of May, 2021. “Really? You have Randy Parker and the CIA tapped?” ponders The Phantom, pausing between his jobs as protector and fair arbiter of the Bangallan natives, and the Unknown Commander of the Jungle Patrol, and the globetrotting terrorist-fighting super-vigilante who answers letters sent to Box 7, Mawitaan. “That’s a lot of cognitive overhead you’re putting on yourself there. Is that really a plausible workload for a human being? Really?”

Meanwhile inside Randy’s house is April Parker. She and Randy have a furious argument about how this does too make sense. April’s thesis is that the CIA is going to capture her by killing Randy and kidnapping Charlotte. Strand, who needs back in the CIA Good Graces file, is there to provide credible sightings of April Parker. April can then be framed for the murder of Randy and kidnapping of Charlotte. And this would leave April with no contact with her former life. Unless she turned herself in and revealed everything she’s learned in her rogue super-agent days. The only way for Randy to live, and Charlotte to be free, is to abandon their lives now and join April on the super-assassin circuit.

It’s a lot to swallow. And Randy’s under a lot of pressure. Like, everybody in the world is calling him at once. You tried calling him. If I have two phone calls in a day I’m useless until next Tuesday. The pressure keeps up. “They” get cited as closing in. April insists they must go now. Here the fact that story comics only get two or three panels a day fights the drama. This whole scene takes a month and a half of reader time to finish. It allows for unwanted giggles about April’s insistence they don’t have much time. In-universe, yes. I think you could do Randy and April’s whole scene in as little as five minutes. But, especially with the cutaways to everyone calling or driving to the scene? It was hard to feel the rush day-by-day.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 6th of May, 2021. Charlotte’s okay! She’s just scared by all this arguing about whether the plot makes sense so she hid a while. Nothing to worry about.

Sam Driver recovers consciousness and races back to Randy’s house. He and Abbey Spencer converge inside, in time to be surrounded by police. Who called them? Unknown. (I’d guess the bicyclist, if it isn’t someone in on the conspiracy.) Where are Randy and April and Charlotte? Unknown. Randy gave his father a quick choking good-bye call and left behind … everything.

The 31st of May saw another several-month time jump, a common Marciuliano response to having crazyfied the story. Randy and Charlotte and April Parker are all missing still. The police and the CIA questioned Sam Driver and everybody they could find. But none of them know anything about anything. That’s about where we readers stand too. (Among other things we don’t know whether anyone in authority believes Sam and all know nothing.) And Sam’s feeling guilty about failing Alan Parker.

How does this all develop? If the pattern follows, we’ll see a couple weeks of rationalizing and stepping back from the craziest parts of what just happened. I can’t guess whether that involves showing Randy and Charlotte Parker. Or showing everyone else reacting to their absence.

Next Week!

Roy Thomas and Larry Leiber’s The Amazing Spider-Man draws nearer to the end of my coverage, but does so in style. By “in style” I mean “with Rocket Raccoon mocking Peter Parker a lot”. Hope to see you next week, True Believers!

What’s Going On In The Amazing Spider-Man? When is Spider-Man coming out of reruns? November 2019 – January 2020

If The Amazing Spider-Man ever returns from reruns of Roy Thomas and Larry Lieber’s work, I’ll share the news here. I’m still figuring to do these plot recaps, and figure to have another around April 2020. So if you’re looking for what the story is after about April, try that link. And, as usual, my other blog keeps up on the mathematically-themed comic strips.

The Amazing Spider-Man.

4 November 2019 – 26 January 2020.

Spider-Man, with the assistance of Black Widow, was fighting the Hobgoblin. The bizarre thing is that Harry Osborn swears he’s not the Hobgoblin. And Spider-Man believes him. But how can this be? Unless there’s someone besides Osborn’s psychiatrist, Dr Mark Stone, in the story?

Larry Lieber and Roy Thomas’s Amazing Spider-Man for the 8th of November, 2019. Hobgoblin, and this strip, consistently called this flying bomb thing a bat-glider and it lets you know how much money Harry Osborn has that he can license that trademark from DC.

The Hobgoblin uses a decoy to make Spider-Man hug a bomb. While Spidey’s knocked out, Hobgoblin handcuffs him to a goofy-looking flying bomb, and unmasks him. Hobgoblin stops long enough to cackle about how he used to be Harry Osborn. And he’s going to shoot this bat-glider rocket carrying Spidey into Mary Jane and Black Widow. Spidey notices the plot point dropped there. Osborn’s got fair reason to kill Spidey, who he blames for killing his father, and Mary Jane, his ex-fiancée. What’s he got against Black Widow?

Larry Lieber and Roy Thomas’s Amazing Spider-Man for the 20th of November, 2019. Mary Jane’s dressed like that because they’re filming stunts for Marvella 2: The Mysterious Island.

On the rocket flight Spider-Man realizes he can’t get his hands free of the chains. But he can … somehow … do thigh-squeezes mighty enough to crumple the rocket exhaust. This should send the glider off-course, although it’s drawn like it actually sends the rocket right for Mary Jane and Black Widow. Well, it’s not like he had much time to change course. But he misses the whole building they’re on. And Black Widow uses her gadgets to send the glider flying straight up, giving Spider-Man time to try breaking out again. Turns out he couldn’t break the cuffs holding him to the rocket, but he could break the rocket fuselage holding the cuffs, which makes sense.

The rocket explodes, or falls apart, and Black Widow catches Spider-Man in the falling. Then the two get a battle against Hobgoblin. This goes well, except that Hobgoblin’s gimmick is flaming jack-o-lantern bombs that explode on contact and that’s a bit goofy. Anyway, they catch Hobgoblin and unmask him. It’s a confused Harry Osborn inside. This makes Spider-Man remember there’s another person in the story. And makes Black Widow identify “Dr Mark Stone”: he’s really … Dmitri Gregorin!

Larry Lieber and Roy Thomas’s Amazing Spider-Man for the 10th of December, 2019. “Basically, any time I encounter someone who doesn’t want to kill me on sight, I know something is up!”

They explain who? soon enough: He’s the former Soviet spy who’d killed Black Widow’s friends years ago. She’s been hunting him. He pulls a gun on them, so, Spider-Man webs the gun away from him and Black Widow clobbers him. And now we get explanations. After a lot of plastic surgery Gregorin had set himself up a new life. But he heard Black Widow was after him. And here he had Harry Osborn, trying to cure his obsessive hatred of Spider-Man, as a patient. Why not hypnotize Osborn into an obsessive hatred of Black Widow instead?

Black Widow points out how the laws of pulp writing say it’s impossible to hypnotize people to commit murder. Stone/Gregorin points out, scientific progress! It’s an answer I love. Meanwhile, Harry Osborn, dragged along to all this, says he’s changed. Spider-Man and Black Widow’s great efforts to stop him from hypno-murdering people have done something. He doesn’t hold Spider-Man responsible for his father’s death, or hate him anymore. Or hate anyone. It’s a great moment of hope for us all. And hey, isn’t it great that a supervillain has had his obsessions broken, and he’ll never lapse back into trouble-making ever again?

Filming resumes on Mary Jane’s movie, Marvella 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me. And Black Widow drops the mention that she knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man. But she’s not going to go blathering the secret. Except here, in earshot of everyone else at the wrap party.

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And with the 29th of December we transition to the next, and current, story. It first ran from the 23rd of August, 2015 through to about the 14th of February, 2016. So unless Marvel and Comics Kingdom are planning to interrupt this mid-story, these repeats are going to last until the middle of June. So I could pre-write the next two of these, and save myself a rush before deadline in April and in July, but I would never be that kind to myself. The story after that is a team-up with Doctor Strange, against Xandu. Then a team-up with Ant-Man, against Elihas Starr. And then a team-up with Rocket Raccoon, against Ronan the Accuser, which is where I started these plot recaps. If we get to there without new strips I’ll probably drop The Amazing Spider-Man from this series.

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That’s far in the future and in the past. The current day past has Marvel Comics’s first great ambiguous villain: Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner. Since 1939 he occasionally pops out of Atlantis to condemn the surface-dwellers to death for their crimes against the sea. And, since 1939, the surface-dwellers fend him off but admit he’s not wrong exactly. In-between punishing the surface-dwellers for their arrogance he turns ally, and then goes quiet for a while. It is part of the rich tapestry of nature’s cycles, like El Niño-Southern Oscillation or the monsoons that sweep over southeast Asia.

Larry Lieber and Roy Thomas’s Amazing Spider-Man for the 8th of January, 2020. I get that there’s a lot of crazypants stuff happening in the Marvel Universe but you’d think “hey, remember that time Atlantis tried to sink Manhattan?” would be something that turns up on, like, the Earth-77013 Forgotten New York web site all the time. It would at least rate as much mention as the Black Tom explosion, anyway.

So Mary Jane, with a couple free weeks, buys an ocean cruise. Peter Parker comes along. They’re a day away from the Virgin Islands when a giant tentacle something reaches over the edge of the boat. Peter Parker’s ready to grab his Spider-Suit when Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, appears. Namor declares that he has spent 75 years warning the surface-dwellers about how they’re destroying the oceans, and he’s had enough. So he’s taking over the world, starting with this cruise ship.

The ship’s captain tries to punch Namor, which goes as well as you’d think. Mary Jane interrupts Namor before he can kill the captain. Namor’s smitten with such a surface-dweller, who reminds him of Betty Dean. Dean stood up to Namor in 1940 (if you believe the comic strip) or 1939 (if you believe the fan wiki). She did much to have Namor bring Atlantis into World War II as co-belligerent with the Allies. So that’s a nice person to remind someone of. Then Namor declares that he shall marry this not-so-mere woman.

Larry Lieber and Roy Thomas’s Amazing Spider-Man for the 22nd of January, 2020. Yeah, part of what makes Peter Parker Spider-Man is that everybody negs on him, but the Newspaper comic seems like it hits this beat especially hard, and it is always funny.

Mary Jane shows superheroic courage in not laughing in his face. Besides, she’s married. “Oh yeah? To some invisible boyfriend in Canada, I bet,” he answers, and keeps on this marriage idea until Peter Parker steps up. And so, as Mary Jane was trying to avoid, they start Superhero Battling. Difficulty level: Peter has to keep announcing how, like, the deck is slippery, that’s why he can knock over Namor. Not because he has the proportional strength of a spider.

How will this fight end? How will this cruise end? How will it get to an Atlantean child in a New York City hospital held at gunpoint by the Army? How will the story go on until June? There are at least two ways to find out.

Next Week!

Last time I looked at Alley Oop and company, got blipped out of existence. How’s that working for them? It’s Jonathan Lemon and Joey Alison Sayers’s Alley Oop up for recapping next week, unless something demands my attention more.

Is There Life After Apartment 3-G?

My love asked if I planned to keep doing comic strip reviews now that I don’t have Apartment 3-G to fill a weekly essay. And if I’m not, then what am I going to do instead? They’re good questions. I don’t know just what I’ll do yet, although I don’t figure on regularly snarking on another comic strip.

There’s plenty to snark about. And there are many fine, quality comic-strip snark blogs, and Usenet group rec.arts.comics.strips. RACS is a bit more likely to talk up the good side of comics, and the business and other sides, I should say. It isn’t all the making fun of any one comic strip, not since the glorious fiasco of Lynn Johnston’s For Better Or For Worse‘s end, an event known throughout all comic-strip commentary communities as the Foobocalypse. We still look back on it with glee. (“Here’s the strip where Johnston warns Elizabeth that if she doesn’t give up her life and marry Granthony soon then she’s going to start killing supporting characters, starting with Grandpa Jim.”) And a bit of snark is a healthy thing. It deflates self-importance, it melts pomposity, and it binds disappointed audiences in giddy consolation.

I came by my Apartment 3-G coverage honestly, when I was entertained by how baffled the comic strip left me. There hadn’t been anything so engagingly dadaist since the last years of Dick Locher’s run on Dick Tracy, when very few plot points were endlessly repeated and abstractly illustrated. There isn’t anything like it now. Even the stodgiest story strip (Mary Worth, by my lights) or the slowest-moving strip (Rex Morgan, in which June Morgan’s 27 months of pregnancy have just ended with her delivering a way overdue baby elephant) are relentlessly understandable. Apartment 3-G I was trying, honestly, to work out what was happening and why it was happening. And I meant to try understanding what was going on both on-panel and behind-the-senes. The jokes were flavoring used to make that more palatable.

So while I’m certainly going to toss jokes off in the direction of misfired comic strips (mostly in RACS, I figure), I don’t expect to make that a regular feature here. There’s nothing going on in Judge Parker that needs earnest explanation. Compu-Toon maybe. But I fear there’s something uncharitable in searching out a target for evisceration. If I’m going to put too many column-inches into ridiculing something, it should be with the hope that something useful will come of it. It should be for a better understanding of the bad, or to share with an audience that wondrous sense of strange outsider-art that true ineptness has. Sneering is an individual right, as quirky and as personal as the set of things we delete from our search histories. Nobody needs to be told to sneer at things. We need it to be at least a bit celebratory.

That said, yes, Mary Worth is getting a little creepy lately, and the dialogue reads ever-more like spies passing messages. (Mary Worth: “We can be more aware of how we affect each other and the environment.” Eight-year-old Olivia: “I like to think that change for the better … and not just the worse … can happen very quickly, too!”)