These "jam" issues are almost never as strong as the more focused stories that define the properties, but I'll be damned if they aren't always a lot of fun. Sidekicks is a fun property that is sadly not quite as popular or as frequent as I'd like, so I'm a little disappointed that this brief glimpse focuses more on light and fluffy stories than on exploring the concept of a super-powered school, but Torres has a way with light stories that makes them fun, and his list of artistic collaborators here is top-notch.
This issue starts and ends with a framing sequence by regular Sidekicks creators Torres and Miyazawa, and it's a fun glimpse into the ongoing story of Sidekicks. Torres ends the opening sequence on a somewhat ambiguous note and then jumps right into a mostly silent story with art by Morse, which was a bit jarring, and I could have used a more obvious "Have fun on your summer vacation" type line to let us know what we were in for. However, once we got into the stories and I figured out the high concept of the issue (brief stories of what the students did on their summer vacation), I enjoyed them quite a bit.
Easily my favorite story of the bunch is by Torres and Wieringo, as the girls pick out bathing suits and discuss the similarity to picking out their eventual super-heroine costumes. It combines the teen angst and super-hero cliche-busting that to me is the heart of Sidekicks, and is just a lot of fun. Wieringo's artwork looks terrific in black and white; at first, I thought it was Christine Norrie's work (which I love), but I soon realized that it was a little more cartoony. At any rate, it's fantastic stuff, and might even be my favorite Wieringo work ever.
It's odd that would be my favorite story, however, given that I'm such a fan of the other two artists on the stories. Scott Morse's unusual style is a perfect match for the tale of werewolf-ish Garth, conveying his story of "communing with nature" with all the lightness and enjoyable style of a Warner Brothers cartoon, and Steve Rolston's punk sensibilities, explored so well in Pounded, are just as perfect for the story of three guys at the "Onipalooza" outdoor rock festival.
The short story form is a tough one, but Torres nails it on all three of his main stories in this book. Each one is very brief, but features some fun character moments and dialogue, a setup and a clever punchline. The reference to one of the super-hero final exams in the Wieringo story is my favorite, but all three are excellent examples of how to do short comic-book stories right. I could wish for a little more clarity of purpose in the first framing story, but overall this is a good sampler of the strong writing to be expected if you pick up the Sidekicks trade paperback. Now I just hope we'll be seeing more examples of this strong writing on future Sidekicks mini-series or (dare I hope) an ongoing.
