By Keigen Rea — I love endings. Well, I guess not in real life. At least not as a general statement. But in entertainment? I love me an ending. Even average endings, and sometimes bad ones, and sometimes endings that are only sort of endings, or the last time a character is in it, or the last good episode of the series, or the last time a creator worked on it—I love them. They help me understand the story better, and to tie all those loose ends up (even when there are still loose ends!). So, even after an arc I’m not totally in love with, at the end of 32 issues across seven years: I love this comic.

Now, to be clear, I think it’s a good ending, but it’s also my favorite kind of ending, nearly devised in a lab specifically for my enjoyment. Flash forwards to the future to wrap the story up works almost 100% of the time for me, with my favorite sitcom and my favorite comic being particular examples that come to mind. It’s a setup where you have all of the space that an issue (or episode) provides for a goodbye, from the creators to the fans, and for the fans to the characters. It’s simple, and it’s nice, and it makes me cry. Of course this comic made me cry.

This is the last time I’ll see Suzy, or Jon, or Kegelf-I mean Myrtle. The inner monologues that flit back and forth but click together so perfectly, which is because they’re really from one brain but you forget because it doesn’t feel like it’s from one brain. That’s here. And now it won’t be anymore. The background gags, or the funny jokes, or the sad jokes, or the rest of the cast. Hell, when’s the next time Zdarsky will be on interiors? Never again on Sex Criminals (well, I mean, theoretically they could do annuals for issues 31-68 but I mean). This is the end of Sex Criminals, and that’s good, because I like endings, but it’s sad, because of course it is, it’s a goodbye. But it is a very good bye.

The series has always been self aware, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the finale is essentially about finales. It’s set at a wedding, and uses that metaphor to explicitly discuss endings and beginnings. Sex Criminals has always been self aware, and it’s ending is no different.

And it’s that self awareness, combined with its earnestness that lands so well for me. It’s an ending that makes perfect sense, is a perfect distillation and extrapolation of the series all the way to the first issue, but it still somehow packs a punch. In my Rereads: Casanova piece, (which I’ve already finished writing, but comes out later this week, so you’re [hopefully] reading this first even though I wrote it before this) I talk about how Fraction works best for me when I’m able to feel a personal connection to his work, and that’s absolutely Sex Criminals’ biggest strength for me as a reader. The characters and what they’re going through feel personal, nit in any specific way, but it feels like it’s talking directly to me in a way that isn’t pretentious in any way, but again, that self awareness and earnestness. It doesn’t feel so much that Fraction is writing to me, so much as I’m interacting with the characters and story in a meaningful way, and he helps that happen. Issue 69 does this expertly, with a little fourth-wall breaking here, and a little side character speech there. I was directed through my own feelings toward Sex Criminals by way of Jon and Suzy dealing with theirs. Sprinkles of joyously bitter leading to one of the best final pages of comics.

At the end, that’s what I want out of a finale. I want it to make me feel okay that I won’t see these characters again, but also recognize that, oh no, I won’t see these characters again. I want to be made to reflect on what endings look like in my life, and how I want to live so that they, while they still hurt, I’m able to move passed them. I want a finale to remind me of everything good about the series and make me want to read it again and again. Sex Criminals #69 is one of my favorite finales, to one of my favorite series I’ve read.

Overall: Sex Criminals was already going to be one of my favorite series’ ever, but a finale this good that feels designed for me makes my argument much stronger, at least to myself. Pick it up without hesitation if you’ve read the other 31 issues. 69/10

*To answer the question from the header…turns out it’s crying, but also contentment, at least according to this book.

REVIEW: Sex Criminals #69

Sex Criminals #69
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Chip Zdarsky
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
FINAL ISSUE! SERIES FINALE in which we skip ahead 39 issues and check in with how it all ends up a few years down the line. SPOILERS: pretty okay?
Buy It Digitally: Sex Criminals #69 on comiXology

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Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky made this beautiful image, and Keigen Rea defaced it with Kim Kardashian’s words. Yell at Keigen about it on Twitter @prince_organa.