Russell puts The Flintstones to bed with a summary of the human race (from the Great Gazoo). Turns out prehistoric Bedrock is a lot more like the 21st century than one might think. There’s a lot of story threads–Fred needs to win an important bowling game, his bowling ball is preparing to rebel against human oppression, Pebbles thinks maybe mystery god Gerald is bunk and science is real–plus some nods back to previous issues. Wilma doesn’t get anything, Betty gets less. It’s sort of manipulative, Russell knows all the right buttons to push, including the nostalgia ones (including mocking nostalgia ones), and Pugh’s art is wonderful as always. The Flintstones has been an interesting, not entirely successful, but often inordinately ambitious series. It’s been a fine time; a yabba dabba doo time, as it were.
CREDITS
Farewell to Bedrock; writer, Mark Russell; artist, Steve Pugh; colorist, Chris Chuckry; letterer, Dave Sharpe; editors, Brittany Holzherr and Marie Javins; publisher, DC Comics.
Not the best issue of The Flintstones. Not the worst. Not the best though. Russell’s pretty wide with his jokes–hipsters, unpaid interns, vegan restaurants, neighborhood associations–all the stuff he’s referencing feels dated and he’s just doing it for filler anyway. The issue turns out to be all about Gazoo. Everything else is fluff. So clearly something went wrong somewhere with this one. But Pugh’s art is great; even though the style with the Gazoo sci-fi stuff is the same, it’s still sort of different. Pugh’s style changes just a little and it’s a neat perspective thing. Otherwise… it’s a bit of a yawner overall. More than half Russell’s jokes flop and he’s got a bunch of them.
Wilma gets a job, the mayor’s war-spending goes overboard, and Fred and Barney discover the cinema. It’s a meandering issue, but Russell touches on a lot. Pugh gets some great stuff to draw, there’s tragedy, there’s irony, there’s political commentary. It’s all kind of heavy too. Flintstones is always kind of heavy.
Booster Gold meets The Flintstones. Then there’s a Jetsons backup. Both are fairly rank, though Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti try to infuse Jetsons with the political subtext Mark Russell usually brings to Flintstones. He doesn’t in the feature though. He just has Booster Gold be an idiot because Booster Gold is an idiot. It’s sort of the comic one would’ve expected from a Hanna-Barbera imprint at DC… unlike the actual Russell Flintstones comic.
It’s a great issue. The Flintstones’ housewares are in crisis because there’s a new bowling ball, there’s a new bowling ball because Fred got fired, Fred got fired because Mr. Slate found a new, pro-capitalism god. Russell finds the right balance between humor, social commentary, and Stone Age sitcom revisionism; Pugh’s art is, as always, pure delight.
It’s like Russell wanted to bite off more than he should be able to chew–Trump, the patriarchy, capitalism–and prove he could do it. And he does. He handles three big plot threads, with the patriachial thread tying into everything else–including Fred’s self-discovery and Wilma’s reunion with her mother. Great Pugh art, some rather funny moments. It’s a fantastic comic.
Until the last few pages, this issue of The Flinstones is just fine. I mean, Pugh’s not on this month and Rick Leonardi and Scott Hanna do an all right enough job but there’s something missing. Russell tries a lot–including Gazoo narrating the whole thing in a report–and some of it connects, some doesn’t. The end’s just way too sappy though.
There’s a considerable darkness lurking in this issue but Russell keeps it at bay. He goes for the humor instead of exhausting potential metaphors. It’s the end of the world–the asteroid is on its way–and Bedrock loses it. As always, some great art from Pugh.
Russell tries a little too hard; he splits between 2016 U.S. political metaphor–sort of–for Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm and some really heavy stuff for Fred and Barney. Like, old war stories heavy. It’s well-written enough, beautifully illustrated, but it’s too thin for Russell’s ambitions.
Once again, The Flintstones amazes. I didn’t want to be obvious and say it rocks, which it also does, but it’s more impressive in the way it amazes. What Russell comes up with is really cool. He does a riff on marriage. The not marrying people of Bedrock revolt against the marrieds. It’s a fairly obvious metaphor for marriage equality, but it’s a good one. Russell seems to be treating each issue of The Flintstones as something special. Almost a one-shot (or he’s just really scared of it getting cancelled and he’s doing the best work he can).