The whole issue doesn’t rest on the action sequences, but it’d still have been nice if penciller Michael Lark had broken them out differently. There’s this very anti-climatic car chase, foot chase, car chase, shoot-out sequence, and it should have been better. Though it also doesn’t matter because it’s just the red herring ending. Scene of the Crime has like six endings. Half of them are also epilogues.

One of them has hero Jack telling his ex-girlfriend all his deep, dark secrets so she’ll give him another chance. I mean, I assume writer Ed Brubaker thought it’d be a good exposition dump scene, but it’s not. Crime is from before talking heads were a comics trope, so there’s this bewildering diner conversation scene. At one point, Lark’s angling from the adjoining booth’s napkin dispenser or something. The comic’s usually so precise in its composition, but not when it’s the big emotional pay-off.

Or it would be an emotional pay-off if Jack and the ex-girlfriend had any chemistry. Brubaker gives Jack five sidekicks in this issue. They all validate Jack, which makes functional sense in one way or another, but it’s tedious. There’s no reason for so many different people to hang around; well, not any logical reasons. A couple of times, it’s just so Brubaker can gin up drama or a reveal.

It’s an okay last issue. It’s disappointing; Brubaker’s big reveal scene’s got terrible dialogue, not to mention his attempts at going more extreme than Chinatown. There’s also some lousy characterization once the mystery’s done, real lack of continuity stuff. Okay… but disappointing.

I remember desperately wanting a sequel to this comic back when it first came out. Probably better they didn’t do one. That second issue was excellent, though.

The rest is take and leave, with way too much leave.

Scene of the Crime doesn’t exactly stall out this issue, but it definitely goes into idle. Not sure why I’m doing car references, possibly because of an ill-advised speeding car sequence, which artist Michael Lark visualizes too quickly. Our hero, Jack, has just been to a hippie commune where he’s gotten in trouble, a la Philip Marlowe (or The Dude), and he and his P.I. buddy have to make a run for it. The issue’s been building to them going to the commune to question the prime suspect. When they don’t, it seems like the revelation is going to wait. Instead, Jack gets a talkative visitor to get us to a cliffhanger.

The issue’s lost the San Francisco personality. Not just with the road trip to the commune, but it’s rainy this issue of Crime and rainy Lark (with Sean Phillips inks and James Sinclair colors) overpowers the location.

Writer Ed Brubaker’s got some decent moments. The best—technically speaking—is when Jack and his aunt talk in exposition dumps to help him along to the subsequent investigation scene. It’s a neat trick, though a little obvious. The supporting cast doesn’t get much personality in this issue, not those related to the murder, not those in Jack’s personal life. His ex-girlfriend reappears, and he has a profoundly narcissistic conversation with her, something Brubaker definitely isn’t doing intentionally. Again, Scene feels very much of its time.

Right down to a jackass hipster P.I. being homophobic while wearing a fedora in 1999.

It’s been so long since I’ve last read the series I can’t possibly remember how it finishes (the end reveal tosses most of Jack’s working theory, and the reader isn’t privy to anything more). I’m convincing myself two was the peak, however. I do remember really wanting another series, something they never did, but in addition to it being a 1999 comic, a 1999 me wanted that sequel.

Even with the lackluster issue, it’s not bad (just problematic). Rainy Lark is glorious, and Brubaker’s got some of the better narration going.

Maybe it’ll end just fine. As long as there aren’t more hippie communes.

Fingers crossed.

I was going to say all writer Ed Brubaker needed to do to completely tie together all the San Francisco crime eras was a grandfather in a wheelchair in a greenhouse, but Big Sleep’s L.A. Scene of the Crime is all San Francisco, all the time; Brubaker knows what he’s doing too. This issue introduces lead Jack’s old buddy Steve, who’s also a P.I. Steve once gave Jack a tour of Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco; when Jack became a P.I., Steve followed suit and looped him. Steve gives Jack information from his fancy international detective agency.

It’s a trope going back to Hammett, if not earlier. But it’s a knowing one and well-executed. Michael Lark’s pencils (now with Sean Phillips inks, which I’d forgotten) take their meeting out of time, like private dicks who lose their pretty blonde clients to violence and get big sads about it are eternal. Great colors from James Sinclair too. Phillips’s inks add a moodiness to the issue, although some of the dreariness is due to the circumstances.

The issue opens with Jack going to a murder scene, the motel he’d just left, with his crime scene photographer uncle in tow. The uncle can get Jack information about the case, whereas Jack just pisses off the cops. At least until the detective shows up and Jack tells him all; Jack telling all is going to be a recurring theme in this issue; he doesn’t have any secrets at this point. Other than the actual client being his cop buddy’s mistress.

Or not really his buddy; his relation. Jack goes to question him, goes to question his client, her mother, the hippies from last issue. Only the hippies have left, the mistress is indisposed, her mother’s not interested in Jack’s help, and the cop buddy doesn’t know anything. Brubaker’s got the formula down—visit the various characters, find answers to questions no one’s asked, and then try to piece together how it all fits together. Classic detective novel, just set in nineties San Francisco.

Though there aren’t any computers around so it could be anytime San Francisco, though the city’s hippie history is about to play a significant part in motives and so on.

There is a super icky moment where Jack whines he can’t be a cop because he’s incapable of shooting anyone, but he means it as a bad thing; the copaganda’s strong, so it’ll be interesting to see if Brubaker does any dirty cop tropes.

The first issue was mostly engaging, occasionally too forgiving with the first person narration—Brubaker’s better this issue, with Jack plunging headfirst off the wagon—and a neat variation on a theme. This issue shows Brubaker’s got more up his sleeve than smart homage, and Lark, Phillips, and Sinclair are keeping pace. Scene of the Crime just got really good.