Story: Mark Russel
Art: Steve Pugh
$4.99, 32 pages
AHOY Comics

What It Is: The grand finale to the second BILLIONARE ISLAND miniseries where we discover the final(?) fate of Shelly Bly and Business Dog.

The Good: Nobody writes comic book satire like Mark Russel. Is anyone else even trying? Anyway, we all know this, so it’s easy to overlook his other stellar attributes as a writer. His characterization is pitch perfect. He doesn’t overwrite or explain things the artist has taken care of visually. He tells a damn fun story, and, pertinent to this one, brings them in for a proper landing.

Steve Pugh’s art is spot-on for this, or really any, Russel collaboration—it’s wonderfully cartoony and expressive, but with just enough old school Big Two house-style chops to sell the satire. The jokes wouldn’t land so well if they weren’t played so straight. Fantastic stuff.

AHOY is a strong publisher with a solid, growing catalogue of unique titles. They adhere to the miniseries or anthology format, which is great if you want to dip your toes in—the barrier for entry is exceedingly low. There’s nothing like continuity between titles and none of the titles have more than a few reasonably priced trades.

The Bad: Like with all AHOY mags, if you wait for the trades, you’ll forgo all the extras, like the short stories and other backmatter material. Incentivizing buyers to pick up the monthly issues isn’t a bad thing, but at five bucks a pop, I’m not sure that a text piece or two make up the difference.

The Score: 9 out of 10 capes

Further Reading: If you like this team, you can’t go wrong with their take on THE FLINTSTONES (2016, DC). I know. I was skeptical too, but it’s first-rate social satire. Other AHOY books are worth it as well. A few standouts include any of the WRONG EARTH volumes or Mark Russel and Richard Pace’s SECOND COMING books, the third of which, SECOND COMING: TRINITY, is serializing monthly currently.