Well… crud.

Lapham explains a lot of the backstory–poorly and needlessly–and then fills the rest of the issue with a useless fight against the Nazis. It’s not even good exploitation–if he’d done football players versus Nazis, for example, it might be something. Instead it’s just a standard resistance, followed by some more fighting. I think the biggest battle is all off-page.

The conclusion is sequel-ready, but in a goofy sense. There’s nowhere for the story to go because Lapham didn’t spend any time making a story anyone wanted to read again. So why conclude like he did?

There aren’t even any comeuppance for the bad guys, which Lapham sort of implied the reader would get.

I’m actually more indifferent to the issue than disappointed. It does make reading the entire series a bit of a waste though.

It would’ve been much better with my dream ending. Or any another ending.

With one issue left, there’s no way Lapham is going to be able to explain everything. Especially not after this issue, when he reveals the bad guy to be the Pied Piper. Well, I suppose he could reveal it all to be a dream of Colin Farrell’s, which would make it the greatest comic book ever.

But I doubt it.

Sparta‘s not a great comic book, but it’s a good one. It’s completely unambitious, which is nice for a creator-owned titled and absent pretense. It’s Lapham providing a monthly diversion for his readers, keeping them interested, keeping them engaged.

At some point this issue I realized Lapham hasn’t made the reader care about a single character. There’s a hostage situation–a standoff–with an infant here and even it doesn’t cause a lot of concern.

However, I’m wondering if Timmons’s lessening of Colin Farrell likenesses isn’t artistic laziness. The art weakens here.

Maybe Timmons just really wanted to draw swastikas?

Lapham has gone far without explaining anything at all about Sparta‘s setting; it’s modern day but there aren’t any cellphones so far and there’s no internet. So when the bad guy shows up at the end with a bunch of Nazi stormtroopers, I’m not sure what to think.

It might be better, overall, if there’s no explanation. Though I’m going to love it if Lapham equates American football culture to Nazism.

This issue is, once again, sort of confusing. Lapham’s killing off characters, revealing secrets, all sorts of busy work. But it really just ends where the third issue could have started. Maybe doing a creator owned four issue limited just doesn’t make sense for Wildstorm, but four issues is about all the story Lapham apparently had for Sparta.

Also, Timmons is toning down all the Colin Farrell likenesses for the hero.

Lapham doesn’t really increase the cast numbers here, but it all of a sudden seems a lot more complicated. The comic relies a lot on the logic of the place and Lapham’s plotting this issue concentrates the attention on that logic. He should be skirting over it, since it’s not particularly comprehensive… at least not in the information given the reader.

It’s a solidly good issue–Timmons’s art keeps getter better, with the lead still looking like Colin Farrell, but no longer looking like a traced and colored drawing of Colin Farrell–but it’s something of a lull issue. Lapham’s reached his slump issue of Sparta (one of them at least). There’s always a bridging issue with a longer limited series and it’s here.

I’m hoping it only lasts this one issue, but Lapham’s introducing new ideas and characters towards the end of the issue, which smells like more setup to me.

Well, I’m still completely confused–there’s a lot of magical stuff going on, fairy-tale type stuff (I think that’s Baba Yaga making an appearance in one panel)–but it’s really quite good.

I’ve sort of ignored Lapham’s output since he’s slowed or stopped Stray Bullets (does anyone know for sure?), but there’s something really nice about Sparta U.S.A.. To some degree, it’s political, but not much. It appears to be a metaphor for giving up your freedoms and thinking you’re getting more rights.

I’m also not entirely sure if I’m missing something because I don’t know anything about football. Maybe there’s something about the Irish Potato Famine in here too.

Lapham does a nice job making the unbelievable town somewhat digestible. There’s this great detail about how the football quarterbacks always have to watch out for assassination attempts (everyone wants to be quarterback).

It’s a much better comic than I’d been expecting.

Talk about going into something cold. I had less than no idea what Sparta U.S.A. is about before reading this first issue–I also didn’t know the lead character is played by Colin Farrell (someone needs to hire artist Johnny Timmons to do licensed comics; if he can do Farrell without it being based on a movie, just imagine what he could do with something actually supposed to use someone’s likeness).

It’s a rather strange book–I didn’t even realize Wildstorm published books like this one, but I guess I don’t know enough about them for that line of discussion. Lapham’s created this strange little town with an obsession with football, but they’re really either all aliens or they’re ruled by aliens. I guess it’s more likely it’s fantasy stuff, not alien stuff, behind it all.

It’s a decent comic. Timmons’s art is confusing though. Besides Colin Farrell, everyone looks the same.