Spencer & Locke 2

Spencer & Locke, Vol. 2 by David Pepose
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When broken soldier Roach Riley goes on a rampage, can Spencer and Locke stop him?

I'm a Calvin and Hobbes fan from way back and i dug the first Spencer & Locke trade so I eventually picked this up.

There are going to be a few spoilers so don't read ahead if you want to be surprised.

This one hits a few more comic strip homages, both Calvin and not. Locke's daughter has a Stupendous Man like alter ego, Roach Riley is Beetle Bailey, and there are all sorts of cameos from other twisted versions of comic strip characters.

The art is just as punchy as in the first volume but I thought the story wasn't as good. Maybe because a lot of the newness was gone? A soldier on the rampage just isn't as exciting as everything that went down in the first book. Also, Locke did something stupid in the second book that didn't make a ton of sense other than to let the story keep going. When you have the bad guy trapped, you don't run off on a motorcycle instead of finishing things.

The book ends open enough to allow for more books but there's also a Spider-Man No More homage that would serve to close the series. Honestly, I'd read another one but I'm not clamoring for it. This one left a bad taste in my mouth even though I enjoyed aspects of it.

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