- Why do you think Sugar is so serious? What about Spike and his light-heartedness?
I don’t know because I don’t think they really get into her personality from before, but I think with both it’s an ironic thing – the girl named Sugar is this deadly serious ice queen and the guy named Spike is actually a lovable himbo.
- Did you enjoy the throwbacks to old comics? Why or why not?
They were all fun concepts. It definitely makes for a good hook for a action/comedy series like this. That said, some of it works better than others and some of the commentary they do to compare the present to the past was…strange to me.
For example, it’s really hard for me to picture the New 52 Superman making an island that looks like himself to hide Kryptonite no matter how many times he says “I was young.” Similarly it’s hard for me to see New 52 Wonder Woman actually nearly getting married to those weird goblin things.
The issue with Green Lantern and his former pet “Itty” was an odd one for me, because it feels like the issue is making a point about how comics these days are so grim and gritty that they can’t do things like give characters pets, but…there’s Atrocitus with Dex-Star, there’s Damian with practically a petting zoo of animals, everyone’s favorite character in Scott Snyder’s Justice League run was Jarro, aka the Best Robin. Then you get into Marvel and you have stuff like Hawkeye’s pet dog Lucky the Pizza Dog, Jeff the Landshark, and much more. If anything, there is never a better time for a superhero to have a pet. So that whole critique of modern comics comes off at best as antiquated, or at worst completely imaginary.
- Back in 1956, Sugar & Spike had their own comedy series, in which they were still little kids. Why do you think DC changed them so drastically? Do you like the change? Explain.
I imagine that it’s partly a way to modernize them and make them work for a modern audience and part parody of doing that exact thing. Again, it’s hard for me to judge if I like it or not because I don’t know the original work and I’m not sure what this is. Was Sugar always the serious one and Spike the dope in the original series, or did something happen to make them this way? I thought we might finally get some answers in the last issue when they flashback to a case, but…nope, they’re still the same. So I guess they’ve always been like that? I dunno, maybe I’m just overthinking it. I probably am – it’s my superpower!
- Which of their stories was your favorite? Why?
The Legion story at the end, without a doubt. As someone who’s read a nice chunk of all those runs, it was so fun to see stuff from the O3’s original goofy costumes with their names labeled on front, to Starfinger of all people showing up.
It makes sense when you think about it, since writer Keith Giffen was one of the major creative forces in the Legion of Super-Heroes for years. It made me want to see Giffen come back and do a Legion book again, though considering the last time he did that he basically…broke the 31st Century, so maybe it’s for the best he doesn’t.
- Who do you like more? Sugar or Spike? Explain.
Honestly, I didn’t really get into either character. They both felt so one-note and not even all that funny by themselves. Like, Sugar is mean and no-nonsense, Spike is a dumbass and shameless flirt, repeat ad nausum for over a hundred pages. There just wasn’t enough depth to really get into these characters. I guess we see some moments of Sugar softening up, but that is so common with that kind of ice queen archetype that they need to do a little more than that to make it work.