2 out of 5

A “puzzle box.”  Right.

I hate fake smart writing.  Fake smart writing can be written by intelligent people, and there are elements of fake smart that can be applied masterfully by masters… but in those circumstances, it’s not really fake, is it?  Let’s look at the wikipedia definition of “puzzle box,” which is what Chelsea Cain was told by her editors what her Mockingbird pitch was: “a box that can only be opened through non-obvious means.”  At its core, you can take this to mean that it looks like something simple but it’s not, whether that’s progressing from A to B (from box closed to box opened), or perhaps identifying that this object, this box, is infinitely more complicated than assumed.  Puzzle box stories, or concepts, to me, start as something small and continually unfold.  I understand the temptation to call this arc – which is to be five issues but I’m bailing here – a puzzle box, as it gives us flashes of Ms. Bobbi solving some psychic riddle and dolled up in various inexplicable costumes, then wants to rewind to explain (*cough* justify) the evolution of her solution and those costumes, but that’s not a puzzle box because none of those things are simple.  You’ve constructed fake walls with a fake objective.  Nothing about a character making a ping-pong ball disappear makes me logically assume something that can then be explained via unfolding plot points.  In other words: B, the story’s conclusion, is a MacGuffin stacked atop MacGuffins.  It’s a linear story chopped up and arranged confusingly – with lampshades tossed all about – to make something meh feel flashy.  Cain’s not the only writer guilty of this, of course, and it’s pretty common in comics, where the ability to show and not tell lets us try out slights of hand that would require more tip-toeing in book form.  But the insult to injury is taking an editorial page to talk about it.

The art’s good, and the current revolution of female-centric writing definitely gives us a style and points of view that our boys club has both directly and indirectly outlawed in the past, so though I find the “she will never suffer an absolute lack of agency” trumpeting in the letters in issue #2 a little too – again – blatant about what ‘Mockingbird’ is all about, I’m happy Marvel and DC are trying to allow these stylistic shifts to happen, even if it’s for the wrong reasons (i.e. being rah rah girls is marketable right now).  I have no doubt Cain digs the character, and I dig spy books.  I could just do without the forced cleverness, and double do without someone pointing to a neon sign telling me that things are clever.

(Reviews: now with less opinion about the actual content!)