By Keigen Rea — Sex Criminals #30 delivers a narration-heavy plot-dense issue on the tail of a narration-heavy plot-dense arc. Fraction describes it as “the MOST un-drawable issue,” in the letters column, and it feels like it in places. It’s an issue that pulls the series together thematically and provides a satisfying cap to the plot. It isn’t overly predictable, confusing, or unpredictable, but it wasn’t as whole as I would have liked. I am very happy that Sex Criminals #30 isn’t the end of the series. 

This issue has Suzy doing some time travel. She narrates. She blows stuff up. It’s a time. 

I think my biggest problem with this issue is that none of it feels new in any way. Much of what Suzy narrates throughout the issue, and by extension what this series has apparently been about, has been said somewhere else before. At the core of so many time travel stories is, “time travel is impossible, because the time traveler has changed,” (shouts to Young Avengers #15) and much of this issue is demonstrating how that’s true. The issue says it well, and really takes the reader through the ways that Suzy finds it to be true, but I think too much of the issue’s space is used on this theme, especially when it eventually gets somewhere that I really like. 

A double page spread in the issue uses panels from across the series to talk about memories and happiness and time travel in a lovely way that I’ll be thinking about for a while. I think it’s comparable to the way Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt and series like it have talked about nostalgia, but instead of relating it directly to stories it relates it to our experiences as people. It’s a lovely idea, and just about as perfect a page of comics as I can think of. What’s more is that the team lands a similar moment on the last page of the comic, hitting a similar beat and bringing it home all at once. They’re not quite enough to make up for the rest of the problems in the issue, but they are very strong work by Fraction and Zdarsky.

Chip deserves special recognition for this issue, and this whole arc, for pounding out 12-panel grids, but moreso for the magical coloring. This issue’s heavy use of pink is baked into the foundation of the series, and it works well. Chip knows how to use colors to sell everything from trauma to romance.

Overall: Sex Criminals #30 holds the weight of the previous 29 issues, and on one hand does it well, and on another disappoints. The fact that this isn’t the actual finale is a sneaky strength, and sets up issue 69 by tidying up the series’ plot. 7/10

Sex Criminals #30 - REVIEW

Sex Criminals #30
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Chip Zdarsky 
Publisher: Image 
Price: $3.99
“THE END,” Part Five Original Series Artist CHIP ZDARSKY returns for our FINAL ISSUE except for the one issue that comes next that's like a coda or reprise or something classy like whatever the WICDIV guys called it.
Release Date: August 5, 2020
Buy It Digitally: Sex Criminals #30

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Keigen Rea is out of Baja Blast. Console him on Twitter @prince_organa