REVIEW: Under the bridge in ‘Strange Fruit #4′

Overview

Story by: Mark Waid

Art by: J. G. Jones

Publisher: BOOM! Studios

FG RATING

4/ 5

User Rating

1 total rating

To sum it all up..

After months of delay, the mini-series Strange Fruit finally concludes with its fourth issue, presenting how a black superman archetype saved a Southern town from its supposed imminent fluvial destruction. The creative team J. G. Jones and Mark Waid show the best and worst of humanity in times of great crisis or calamity, which in […]

Posted November 5, 2016 by Norby Ela

FULL REVIEW

After months of delay, the mini-series Strange Fruit finally concludes with its fourth issue, presenting how a black superman archetype saved a Southern town from its supposed imminent fluvial destruction. The creative team J. G. Jones and Mark Waid show the best and worst of humanity in times of great crisis or calamity, which in hindsight, still exists nowadays when fear and anger fueled by hatred and racism get the better of us. However, heroism prevails no matter what is/was the price. Whatever color of the skin, she/he can make the difference, as shown in the climatic pages in the midst of catastrophe and despair. Again, in Waid’s hands, heroic acts matter.

Together with J.G. Jones’s amazing interiors, readers may feel that they are part of the 1920s Southern state period. Well-researched in virtually every department: the script, dialogue (and the nuances), the backgrounds, and even facial features and minutiae details, these are placed in historical context, both in visual and narrative perspectives.

However, there are certain pages that the sequential paneling is a bit disorientating unless read for the second or third time around, particularly the heroic acts of the main protagonist here. Also, expect rather racy terms and lingo expressed by the characters in this finale. Again, read it in context rather than settling on this political correctness non sequitur nonsense. I feel the ending is rather disheartening because I rather expect a true “superhero” treatment, the Mark Waid forte. However, we are dealing with reality, the truth of historical writing in many instances. Recorded sources are accounted, hence the two-page historical “footage” of the so-called “savior”, instead of the “actual” (read: unrecorded or worse, “whitewashing”). And sadly, the long delay lessens the mini-series’s rather interesting premise and plot, making some readers like yours truly almost lose interest, if not enthusiasms.

Anyways, Strange Fruit #4 finishes a superhero-inspired historical revisionist take on the great flooding in the Southern state of the 1920s. Waid’s script and dialogues are excellent, so to speak. The same goes to J. G. Jones’s painstaking and well-researched artwork. There are flaws as mentioned above, but this mini-series proves that there are more than meets the eye in memory and historical writing.