One of my all-time favorite DC comics is Kyle Baker’s “Plastic Man.” It has wit, it has charm, it’s zany fun, and it utilizes Plastic Man’s powers to tell a story that would never work without them. Now “Impossible Jones” is not like Baker’s “Plastic Man” in aesthetic, commentary, or form, not to mention it’s not a DC property, but it does share all the rest, even down to the tension between hero and crook, though Jones is just a smidge more…impish than good ol’ Eel O’Brian.
Cover by David HahnWritten & Inked by Karl Kesel
Pencilled by David Hahn
Colored by Tony Aveña
Lettered by Richard StarkingsA thief gets powers, is mistaken for a superhero— and runs with it. Why not? Comes with some great perks. Of course, she has no intention of reforming— with these powers? Are you kidding?!— it’s just sometimes there’s no better place to hide than in plain sight.
IMPOSSIBLE, you say?
EXACTLY!
Imagine Harley Quinn meets Plastic Man in the Marvel Universe with a little Dick Tracy thrown in. Kind of.
That’s IMPOSSIBLE JONES!
From the get-go, “Impossible Jones” is a ton of fun and tells you exactly the kind of story you’re in for, a thief with a heart of gold story (sorta,) complete with a fantastic and colorful cast, and an impish sense of humor. Page one is a splash page of Holly Daze and her Christmas Crew scaling a building, gloating aloud about the heist they just pulled. We’re introduced to her via her dialog, which is dripping with everyone’s favorite villain trope: the declaration of their own name to her own henchmen, while a billboard of Jones looks down on the crew. It’s a well-crafted page, with Starking’s lettering guiding our eyes from the billboard to the Henchmen first rather than to Holly, ensuring we read the entire page and take in all of Hahn’s lovely details and character expressions prior to following the watchful eye of Jones’ billboard down to Holly as she runs along the roof.
You might think that this is just a fun bit of symbolism, the ever watchful eye of the hero Impossible Jones bearing down on anyone doing crime in the city, and you’d be right but it’s ALSO a very literal watching as we find out on the next page that the billboard was in fact Jones herself hiding on top of an advertisement for herself. It’s a classic use of these kinds of powers and the perfect way to introduce Jones to the audience, demonstrating her cleverness, her skill at manipulating her environment and herself, and a floor with which to understand her powers in future uses and to compare to her past. The ensuing fight retains this cleverness and adds an extra layer of bouncy dialog that reads as modern but has a distinct Silver Age feel to it, which is a good descriptor for the entire book. I mean, come one, Jones turns her hands into giant pistols that shoot giant rubbery fists which punch Holly’s goons with a big KWAK & WOK, courtesy of the always onomatopoetic Starkings. It’s pure, earnest pulpy fun with enough self awareness to not ape the Silver Age but instead pull from and modernize it.
Hahn is the perfect artist for that tone, with a clean and clear style that leans more cartoony than realistic, allowing him and Kesel to really push Jones’s powers (which aren’t technically stretching like Plas) and emphasize the super nature of other heroes & villains. Kesel’s inks are also nice and light but solid, leaving plenty of room for Aveña to color & shade it in bold, solid colors. Aveña’s lighting isn’t always the strongest, with faces sometimes being washed out by a light source or with shading that isn’t as contoured as it should be, usually on turned faces or noses, but that imprecise shading also works in the favor of “Impossible Jones’s” style. The same cannot be said, however, for the ending of the volume. Yes, “Impossible Jones: Grin and Gritty!” is the first volume of a planned series and because of that, the ending suffers.
The structure of “Impossible Jones” is that of an origin story, with the cold-open showing us where Jones (originally Isabelle Castillo) is currently, providing a contrast with her past self, while the main thrust of the book is showing how she got her powers, what she does with them when she first gets them, and culminating in her first true outing as a “hero.” It’s all great stuff that the creative team delivers with aplomb and wit, all while developing a new world of heroes that never feels bogged down in explaining the minutiae, instead content to let us experience it via the few named characters we need to meet at this point in the story. Even Steven might be my favorite design & power set of the bunch but they’re all distinct and clever pastiches & original creations.
Continued belowThat said, Jones’ “heroic journey” is incidental to the actual narrative, as she’s actually on a revenge quest to find out who betrayed her and thus caused her to go from Isabelle Castillo, master thief, to Impossible Jones, powered individual who was almost certainly dead for three days. That thread is never tied-up. We have no more answers at the end of the series than at the start, which is fine but when the trajectory of the book is leading towards the reveal of something, it feels deflating to end the book on a jump back to the present to resolve the cold-opening and button up the conceit of the hero narrative.
There are plenty of questions that are tantalizingly unanswered, like what’s up with Jones’ shadow, WHY was she put into the chamber at the start, was it all a set-up, what’s her story BEFORE the job that went wrong, etc. These are ideas that have longevity and don’t need answers in this first book. They’re narratives I’m excited to see explored in future volumes. It’s not that “Impossible Jones” should have buttoned up every question, it’s that, the way this first volume is structured, we don’t get enough of the answers (or teases of answers) to the central questions of this book: who set her up and what is Isabelle going to do about it? It also doesn’t help that the pacing of “Impossible Jones” made it feel like there was at least one more chapter, maybe 10-20 more pages, that should have been there in between the final scene of the Jones/Homewrecker fight and the present which did this heavy lifting and provided us with enough closure on this volume while providing enough open-endedness that I want to come back for more.
Despite all that, I do want to come back for more. The book is an excellent super tale, with a twist that’s fun and engaging, and a cast of characters I actually remember despite only spending 100 or so pages with them. “Impossible Jones: Grin and Gritty!” is full of snappy banter, fantastically expressive art, and builds a superhero world that feels colorful, joyful, and expansive. If that isn’t doing the impossible, I don’t know what is.
Oh, and before I forget, Holly Daze pulling out an unkosher Menorah instead of a Hanukiah (7 vs 9 points) was both hilarious to me and got me to groan and roll my eyes cause I didn’t know if it was a mistake or exactly what a Christmas themed villain would do. Extemporary evidence suggests it was on purpose. If she doesn’t have a jelly donut attack in the sequel, though, I will be very disappointed.
