Strange Academy #11 - Marvel Comics

STRANGE ACADEMY No. 11, August 2021

Consisting of a “murder mystery at Strange Academy, and not the fun kind with the pretend roles”, Skottie Young’s storyline for this particular twenty-page periodical marvellously mixes up both deadly solemnity with a sudden healthy dose of surprising humour before the cold-hearted killer is finally revealed. Indeed, right up until Howard the Duck begins his lengthy interrogations, the Illinois-born author appears to have predominantly penned a disturbingly dark tale depicting every effort to resurrect an entirely-shattered Toth failing, despite the best efforts of Doctor Voodoo, the crystalline youth’s magical parents and even “a wizard in our world [who] lost his way and paid the price!”

Happily however, once the Duckworld detective arrives this “Whodunnit” momentarily stops taking itself quite so seriouslessly and instead initiates a series of black comedies focused upon the alibis of all the dead student’s friends; “Kid, save the theatrics for drama club. I need to know where you were last night after eleven pm.” Foremost of these has to be the feathered Private Investigator’s questioning of Calvin Morse, who seems suitably enthusiastic to “play along” with the duck’s demands by wanting to both make a phone call and have a lawyer present. But there’s also a good deal of fun to be had by Iric Brorson unsuccessfully trying to implicate his room-mate, Doyle Dormammu in the death too.

Equally as well done is Young masterfully shifting the comic’s plot back to its much more solemn side, courtesy of the slaughterer’s stooge unexpectedly discovering Toth’s heart whilst innocently turning out the contents of their jacket pocket. This revelation stops any giggles or guffaws amongst the audience stone dead, and sets the book up for a truly dramatic conclusion as Jericho Drumm discovers he’s facing an infinitely more dangerous foe than he initially imagined.    

Adding plenty of suspense, as well as some cheap laughs, to this publication’s proceedings are Humberto Ramos’ energetic layouts, which for most of the comic do a first-rate job of switching the atmosphere from despair, to farce, and then back again once “the thing in the cellar” has dropped its convincing disguise. Bizarrely though, this issue does disconcertingly contain the odd occasion, such as when the Mexican is sketching an aggressively angry Ogeode the Catbeast, where a perusing bibliophile could be forgiven for double-checking that the illustrator hasn’t been momentarily supplanted in their artistic duties by somebody less proficient in their pencilling for a rare panel or two.

The regular cover art of "STRANGE ACADEMY" #11 by Humberto Ramos & Edgar Delgado