Sex Criminals #30: A Love Supreme

For all of its bawdy humor, sex shenanigans, and physics-defying, Sex Criminals finds itself closing out (well, almost closing out, as the next issue jumps ahead to #69 for the grand finale, because why wouldn’t it?) in a somber, meditative state. Last issue caught up with Jon and the rest of the gang after the explosion atop Kuber Badal’s skyscraper that appeared to kill him and Suzie both; this issue reveals that Suzie didn’t just become part of the Quiet, but rather, became the Quiet. What exactly the Quiet is is left up for grabs; but in becoming it, Suzie is able to move up and down her life in a non-linear fashion, reliving her best and worst moments non-sequentially. To say this issue is a head-trip just barely scratches the surface.

By design, there’s a lot in Matt Fraction’s script that’s open to interpretation. There’s a great deal of rumination on the meaning of life and love, the impermanence of memory, and the little moments that define us. Life, it seems to posit, is a series of moments. One to the next. And no matter how big a moment may seem at the time, the next moment is right around the corner. Because life goes on regardless. That’s pretty heady stuff for a comic that features a character nicknamed Kagelface, but would be for any other comic, too.

The disarming nature of Sex Criminals has always been one of its key strengths. Taken superficially, it’s a lot of sex jokes and outside-the-normal (whatever that means) sex and sex and sex and sex. But that facade has been masking a lot of deeper philosophical questions throughout. And that’s never been more of a point than in issue thirty, as Fraction and Zdarsky give it their all to punctuate their grand thesis on love and the human condition. Has Sex Criminals been a dirty, hilarious ride? Absolutely. But it’s been a lot more than that, too. Now that the end is finally near, all that’s left for the creators to do is put a nice, neat bow on the story and bring everything full circle. And that’s exactly what they’ve done here: put an ending – but not really an ending, because nothing ever really ends – on the tale of two people, Suzie and Jon, falling in love.