Graphic Novel Review - 'Jenny Sparks: Be Better' by Tom King (Writer), Jeff Spokes (Artist), Clayton Cowles (Letterer)

"I am who I always was. Just a girl searching for the light."

I read this comic expecting to hate it.

Even though it is a female-led superhero comic, it appeared too gritty and edgelord (edgelady?) to me. Plus I had never heard of the superheroine of this one beforehand. But I decided to give it a go anyway, and then move on with my life, never thinking about it again.

'Jenny Sparks: Be Better' did start out frustrating, confusing and boring to me, as I'd predicted. The key words here are 'start out'. I started it thinking it was yet another typical gritty realism style of superhero comic, done far too many times and just as often failing at it. I wasn't into it, and I didn't care about any of the characters.

But then I was into it, and I did care. The further I read, the more I realised and understood what Tom King was trying to accomplish. In my opinion, he mostly succeeded.

By the end of the journey, the test of endurance, I was left breathless and speechless.

'Jenny Sparks: Be Better' might be a modern superhero comic masterpiece.

It's like an updated 'Watchmen'.

Benefitting from how it's a lot shorter and in fact easier to digest than 'Watchmen'. Not mention more accessible, fresh, and progressive. It has intersectional feminism, and it deconstructs toxic masculinity!

Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself.

*Ahem*

I won't give away too much detail. I won't dare to spoil anything. Nothing crucial, anyway. But holy &&@@*$$%*!, Batman! 'Jenny Sparks' is a very relevant superhero comic that isn't really about superheroes. It's about people, and, as the volume's subtitle straight-up states, their capacity to be better. Do better. If they just try. To do what's right. Always. Throughout history. No matter what horrible, *&&*%!*£ up !%&@£ that humanity pulls, in each century, each generation.

It is like if the heroes in the DC universe were transplanted in the real world. It references real life wars, tragedies, recessions, and politics. It holds no punches in its commentary on what's been happening in the world for the past several years (pre-2024... and good !&^@&%*! I'm depressed again), and how we as a species have truly $£@!*! ourselves up. We have learned nothing. We have not improved ourselves. We have wasted everything. We have let apathy, inertia, boredom, not caring about anything, and reactionary politics destroy us as a society.

But maybe as individuals we can improve? Try to make others' lives better, as well as our own? To achieve something good? To be selfless, and care, and act on it? To actually be happy?

I'm not entirely sure if this was Tom King's intention, but he seems to be saying that superheroes in reality would not, in fact, make it better; that the world would be more or less the same, and that superheroes are, in the grand scheme of things, £%^$!@ing useless. Not if they don't attempt to change the status quo.

Well, maybe it's lucky for us then that Jenny Sparks is no superhero. Or, she is perhaps the most unconventional superhero I have ever seen. No costume, no flash and bang (except with her lightning powers), no pretension, no ego, no @$*%@s given, she's a semi-immortal woman who has lived and seen far too much, and it is extremely hard for her not to be cynical. In that, the reader sympathises with the extremely coarse and rough woman.

Jenny Sparks, the Spirit of the 20th Century, has learned much in her long life, too. Perhaps she will save the day - save the world - perhaps she won't. But she will do it her way, without the need for any costumed vigilantes and "gods". Without the ineffectual "Justice" League.

Superpowered people, who in real life would be exploited, taken advantage of, abused, ignored, forgotten, traumatised, and/or burnt out, might end up becoming more of a danger to society and humanity than its saviour...

Jenny Sparks did not seem to be a heroine I would like, despite her being a British (like moi!) antiheroine in a DC comic. She smokes - and I mean she's always smoking, it's her gimmick - and she's borderline suicidal (that she can't die is more of a tragedy than a second chance kind of epiphany for her), and she swears on nearly every page and panel she's in. Quite hilariously, DC censors every swearword in the volume, despite its 17+ rating, and there is a lot of cursing, so it can get annoying and irksome. Just look at how I've been doing it in this review so far, to prove my point, and even then I'm restraining myself.

*Ahem*, anyway:

But hey, I'll forever praise unconventionality in heroines. I appreciate and admire how honest, carefree (in her personal life, that is), and snarky Jenny is. She really does not give a $£@* what anyone thinks of her. She's over a hundred and twenty years old, why would she care about being "unlikeable"? She's fed up with everything, she's cynical as all $!"&@, but she isn't heartless. In fact, she cares deeply. She knows what's what and where's where, and she won't allow herself or anyone else to go too far off the deep end - when it comes to surviving a "civilised" society. Both self-destruction and the deconstruction of others (deliberate or not) are a slippery slope. And they can be connected.

Jenny legitimately tells it like it is, and is not afraid to mouth off any superhero. She's not afraid to tell them off, to challenge any of them on how they do things.

Keeping heroes in check and making sure they don't fall from grace and lose their way and become monsters is pretty much Jenny Sparks' job in the DCU. She's like the world's most knowledgeable, yet reluctant and weary therapist. A wise, deadpan, cranky woman with a cigarette, who can make lightning with a snap of her fingers.

She wants everyone to be better, for !%*&'s sake. That's her immortal life's purpose, no matter how fruitless it proves to be, again and again.

British, chain-smoking, foulmouthed, dressed like a Spice Girl, and too human to be described as a thunder goddess - Jenny Sparks is a very unique antiheroine.

'Jenny Sparks: Be Better' - what a comic for our times. The crassness, the blatancy, the shocks (in more than one sense), the violence, the depression, the rage, the intensity, the political, economical and social critiques. It is an edgelordian superhero comic with brains and a point, and a catharsis the end. It holds nothing back. It is a wakeup call for us all. It is a common sense relief from the insanity.

It is brutally true to life, yet hopeful.

It takes a while to get invested in, and it is a slow-burner, but it is worth it. It contains Tom King's trademark wordy and bordering-on pretentious dialogue, where people talk like they know they're in a story and so try to be as impressive and obvious in their speeches as possible. But it's not so bad here.

Plus, Tom King has been busy lately, hasn't he? Uncommonly so. He's been hired to write for comics 

everywhere now. Nothing against him personally, but why is this white guy with a mixed bag writing career suddenly, seemingly writing every comic? He's on 'Trinity: Daughter of Wonder Woman' at the moment, WTF? Why? Seriously, it's like he never sleeps.

Although, I like 'Helen of Wyndhorn'.

*Ahem*, anyway :

'Jenny Sparks', for a comic meant to introduce readers of 2024 to the titular character, who was originally created in 1996 for the 'Stormwatch' comic series by WildStorm, in the DCU, it doesn't really explain how Jenny became immortal, nor why she looks young despite first dying when she was ninety-nine years old. Is it to do with her lightning powers? How does that work? What's that about? Is she really supposed to be Charles Darwin's great-granddaughter?

Oh well, who gives a @$£!%?

'Jenny Sparks: Be Better' contains poignant LBGTQ+ themes, and pop culture as well as historical analysis themes, to boot. It is epic.

I shall, finally, sign off here.

As Jenny Sparks would say: Bloody hell, she don't half talk a lot of bollocks, does she? What a writing windbag! Fuck! (You got a light?)

(I love everyone. I love you all. Take care of yourselves. Bye.)

Final Score: 4/5