Once again, creator Jaime Hernandez surprises with Penny Century. This issue features the first appearance of Maggie’s husband, T.C. (short for Tony “Top Cat” Chase). However, that appearance comes with a big asterisk. The character doesn’t show up, just his face. Well, his head. See, the issue’s all a dream, and Maggie’s working out some stuff.

She’s conflicted about the divorce, her feelings for Hopey, and still recovering from her traumatic night of driving a few issues back. Even without a corporeal ghoul in her backseat, the experience was still harrowing enough to stick with her. Jaime’s got a few existing Penny threads running through the story—including ones it doesn’t make sense for Maggie to know to dream about—and this issue’s the first time Maggie’s had a story from her perspective since the lonely drive one.

It’s also the first time the reader gets to hear about Maggie’s marriage from her.

There aren’t many details on that front. Maggie thinks about how not many people knew about the marriage (Jaime doesn’t break the fourth wall with a wink, but it’s almost there) and remembers some scant details about her time with T.C., mostly in contrast with Hopey.

Maggie’s dream—and the issue—is about a race. She starts the race by dropping out and going for a walk instead. Her walk leads her to Izzy, dressed as a witch and plowing a yard, not in Hoppers; they have a brief reuniting moment (I don’t think they’ve had a scene together in Penny) before Izzy starts worrying about her next public speaking engagement and shrinks. When she’s worried, she shrinks (for Maggie). It’ll be relevant later since she previously grew for Penny and Hopey.

And not in their dreams. Penny’s wall between dreams and reality is tenuous.

The next stop is a cocktail party where the eclectic, obnoxious high-brow guests make fun of Maggie. Once she’s done with them, Jaime introduces the plot foil—someone’s following Maggie. In the distance, the person’s just a little stick figure, no details; up close, they will be wearing a black bodysuit, their face covered until the reveal.

Wait, there’s also a little imp who usually lives inside Maggie and causes all her mistakes, only in this dream it’s out in the world with her and can directly attack her. Can’t forget the little imp.

Who doesn’t not resemble Hopey.

Hopey and Penny eventually show up in the dream, along with Norma, a new character and mutual friend of the gang who Jaime introduced last issue at the very end.

That tenuous wall between dream and reality comes back into play with Penny talking to Maggie about her current adventures (on the moon, running away from settling her dead husband’s estate) and her previous ones, covered in the comic, but without Maggie around. So either someone told Maggie about them or Penny Century’s reality is both dream and not.

It’s a good, fun, thoughtful story, with Jaime and Maggie working out a bunch. The art’s fantastic; since she’s encountering new things every few panels, sometimes dream-like things, Jaime gets to do one excellent reaction shot after another. Jaime does eight panels a page for the entire story (minus the title splash), and Maggie’s got fantastic expressions in about six of them. There’s also a visual deep cut back to old Love and Rockets; one Beto also did more recently in New Love.

Then the color strip on the back cover has Maggie and Hopey—in L.A. but seemingly in their earlier, punkier days—seeing Mini Rivero on the street and Hopey explaining about her fifties local access show, which Jaime’s been using as a strip. It’s a neat little strip, also bringing in some proverbial Rockets.

So the story’s good—it’s a great dream story, but with the caveats as a dream, it can’t be as tangible—and the art’s fabulous. One more Penny Century to go. As usual, I can’t imagine where Jaime’s going with it, but I’m confident it’ll be good….

I’m going to miss this book.

This issue’s distinctly creator Jaime Hernandez’s work, but some of the moves he makes remind entirely of brother Beto’s.

The first strip, for example, is a first-person one-pager about Ray getting in a social faux pas at a party. Jaime shows half of Ray’s face in a reflection; otherwise, it could easily be an autobiographical sketch, something Beto’s done in the past.

But the bigger Beto-esque surprise comes in the Locas feature, which Jaime splits into two parts. Most of the comic (except the Ray opener) is set soon after H.R. Costigan’s funeral. He died at the end of last issue, and this issue catches us up with everything since. Sort of.

The feature starts with Hopey waking up and volunteering at her local polling center. There’s a quick introduction to the other poll workers, and Hopey, wearing her sunglasses inside all day, contrasts them nicely. It’s slice of life stuff, right up until Maggie shows up to visit Hopey. Maggie mentions Hopey’s roommate—who called to her off-page at the story’s start, but who we’ve never met. Jaime will be introducing a lot of people we haven’t met, but the characters all know in this story….

Hopey tells Maggie all about Costigan’s strange funeral, where she was the only person from the comic. Neither widow Penny nor ex-wife Norma nor daughter Negra is at the funeral with Hopey.

The visit is tense—Hopey’s mad Maggie didn’t go with her to the funeral, but Penny hadn’t actually told Maggie about the funeral (or going with Hopey)—and Hopey goes back inside to listen to platitudes from the normies. She’s clearly in a very bad mood.

Jaime finishes the strip with a somewhat bewildering “Concluded in this issue” tag. Where he’s going to go with it is a big surprise.

But, first, he catches up with Norma and Negra. They’re on a road trip through the desert, staying at crappy motels, eating junk food, and actually bonding. It’s the first time Jaime’s really shown Norma as a loving mom; usually, she’s more concerned with her newly acquired wealth and wealthy friends, but here she and Negra are away from all that noise.

Except, of course, Norma has taken them on this impromptu road trip to keep the estate lawyers away from Negra. She’s H.R. Costigan’s daughter, after all, and her whole life is about to change.

The strip also establishes Negra never even met Costigan, which explains why he never mentioned her in Love and Rockets proper. I think.

Also—I forgot—we get some backstory on Costigan; Hopey and Maggie overhear the poll workers talking Costigan trivia, going back to World War II. It’s interesting as Costigan’s been a Love and Rockets character since the first issue, and Jaime’s taken years to reveal the backstory; heck, it took him years to reveal the horns weren’t demonic.

After the Norma and Negra strip, it’s back to Locas, starting with Maggie (and readers) finally getting to meet Guy Goforth, the big oaf who’s trying to romance Hopey. They all go for donuts on Hopey’s break, which leads to Maggie teasing Hopey about her suitor. And then Hopey loses it, unloading on Maggie.

During the barrage, we find out something about what happened a few issues ago with Maggie’s nightmare drive and her imagined (or not, still unclear) stalker, but also how she’s been ghosting Hopey since and Penny’s been their information go-between.

Penny’s always present in Penny Century while rarely being on-page.

Hopey’s day of work ends with a ride home from the poll supervisor (so she doesn’t need Maggie’s offered ride and proverbial olive branch) and the introduction of her roommate. Visually, no names. The roommate turns out to be a character from the comic’s opening strip, the Ray one-pager, so while Ray, Hopey, and Maggie are all in the same physical location, they keep missing each other.

Penny calls and dishes to Hopey about everything going on with Maggie, which includes shocking information for everyone—reader and Hopey alike—leading to an old-school bonding scene between the two of them. Except Jaime’s just revealed their entire relationship since Love and Rockets ended is different than what he’d been implying. It’s a stunner of a reveal, so big one of the supporting cast even comments on it.

It’s a turbulent strip—the second part is eight pages, and Jaime got like four major dramatic moments—and a really good one. Great art, especially on Hopey, who has lots of visual reactions to the events unfolding, often with the sunglasses obscuring her expressions.

Then we finally get a Penny appearance, which is an almost Watchmen, Doctor Manhattan on the moon riff. Or it might just be a Doctor Manhattan on the moon riff featuring a couple surprise costars for Penny. Great good girl art from Jaime.

The back cover color strip is a Lil’ Ray outing; nuclear bomb drills. It’s a fun, quick, but haunting strip.

It’s a humdinger of an issue, with a humdinger of a reveal. Penny Century’s been unexpected as far as content to this point, but it’s never been so wildly unpredictable. If it were any other comic, it might be cause for apprehension, but with Jaime, it’s cause for (perhaps cautious) enthusiasm.

After the last issue’s full-length feature, creator Jaime Hernandez is back to the Penny Century anthology feel with this issue. The issue has two narrative arcs, split over five strips (plus a color strip and then another “To Be Announced”). The first and last strips are single-pagers, bookending and tying the arcs together neatly.

The comic opens with a very naked Penny Century hanging out at Isabel’s house in Hoppers. Since we last saw Isabel in the present, she’s shrunk back down to regular size; Penny comments on the return to normal but not how it happened. Penny’s invited herself to Isabel’s to be a houseguest while she deals with a personal crisis. Only it took her a week to mention the crisis to Isabel; otherwise, they’ve just been watching TV and drinking wine, with Penny walking around naked all the time.

Much to the neighborhood men’s delight (and embarrassment).

There are some ties to last issue’s flashback to Isabel’s childhood, like Isabel now living in the sort of haunted house and it turning out Penny grew up, for a while, in that house, something Isabel didn’t mention in her flashback sum up. While the series doesn’t seem connected, it’s always connected, whether through express detail or visual cues.

The first strip—the one-pager—has Penny inexplicably setting out a bottle of wine. It seems like Jaime’s making an art observation about certain parts of her anatomy having lines similar to a wine glass. Or martini glass. The wine bottle gets explained later, and it’s a great detail, but it’s a very peculiar opening.

The second story is one of the features. It’s ostensibly a Hopey story, only it opens with Negra suffering through mom Norma’s latest party. Jaime does reveal—thankfully—Norma’s shithead boyfriend is less a danger than a dunce. Hopey’s bartending, and she’s getting the guests too drunk, Negra’s sick of her mom sucking up to rich people, and Norma’s having a personal crisis of her own. Sort of. I mean, she’s having a personal crisis, but it’s not exactly her own.

In fact, it’ll turn out to be very similar to Penny’s crisis.

After the party, Hopey’s got to figure out a ride home, and Maggie’s not around. Has anyone seen Maggie since the possible ghoul in her back seat two issues ago? Unclear. It’s a six-page story and excellent.

Then it’s another naked Penny and Isabel story. Isabel is apparently down for the nudism, except when they have to go to the grocery store for more wine. Penny reluctantly gets dressed but only barely. This story is where she talks to Izzy about her crisis, their history with the house, and so on. It’s an excellent Izzy and Penny story; it just happens to technically be six pages of nude good girl art by Jaime.

The “To Be Announced” strip is next; it’s a page about Lil’ Ray fighting tree elves who maybe stole his ice cream. It’s weird, slight, and short enough. The weird makes up for the slight.

The next strip is the adult Ray story, which is the longest feature at seven pages. It takes place the night of the issue’s day, with a bummed out Ray falling for a stripper who doesn’t know he exists, then helping out Negra and a friend; they’re stranded thanks to no gas. The story also has Ray discovering Hopey’s in L.A. and potentially Maggie, which probably made the story read longer than the seven pages because—confession time—my greatest fear for Penny Century is Jaime getting Ray and Maggie back together. Because Ray, as this story—where he narrates–confirms, is a dick.

He could be a lot worse, obviously, and he behaves well with the teenage girls, but his rumination’s on how he’s been wronged by the women in his life… nope. It’s particularly strange because there’s so much less self-awareness than in his first story of the series when we found out about his almost life-long obsession with Penny. Not to mention their occasional booty calls.

It’s a good story, some great art, incredible storytelling from Jaime. But damn, I hope Ray keeps his toxic ass away from the Locas.

There’s an interesting nod to another of the series’s strips, “Space Girl.” Jaime introduced Space Girl and her nemesis, Cheetah Torpeda, in the Color Special and then brought the characters along here; Ray’s strip club of choice is called Cheetah Torpeda, and Space Girl is one of his other childhood crushes, it turns out. Jaime’s also got a few references to brother Beto’s works in this issue. Such a lovely tapestry.

The last black-and-white strip is the one-page conclusion to the main arc, with Penny and Izzy having another talk about her crisis. It’s simultaneously genial and haunting, even before Jaime announces a milestone in the Love and Rockets lore.

The color strip brings back party girl Mini Rivero, who Jaime also introduced in Color Special. It’s a crossover strip with Space Girl. It’s a quick bit of fun.

My personal fears for the soap opera story aside… it’s an excellent comic. Jaime’s firing on all cylinders.