The Pull List – Mystery Science Theater 3000 #4
The journey through public domain comics continues for the Satellite of Love crew. Kinga Forrester is deeply invested in tales of superheroes, horror, and suspense, dropping Jonah and the robots into two new stories. Jonah finds himself once again as Black Cat’s sidekick, and they investigate a theft of a prize buddha statue in The Buddha’s Secret. Crow returns as the horror host, the Crow Keeper, and tells the story about an artist and her cheating husband in The Clay Coffin. The stories are strange, and the artwork is no better, but can the crew handle another round of unusual tales from the comics long forgotten?
Jonah and Crow find plenty of material to poke fun of in their respective stories. They didn’t have to try very hard since these comics were riddled with trouble. From convoluted narratives, messy character designs and bad plot twists, these stories were ripe to be parodied. Black Cat latest adventure finds herself chasing down a thief and a crazy scheme involving shirtless men and slow torture. Jonah makes the best out of the situation, getting a chance to flex his fighting skills. Crow offers his snarky comments on a horror story that doesn’t offer much in scares, but plenty in the unusual. A scorned artist seeking revenge on her unfaithful husband. However, her plan is a bit complicated and it does not work out well to what she expected. Back for again for an absurd product placement, Totino’s Pizza Rolls make another appearance to remind readers to eat. This time being served fresh from the sky when Kinga Forrester jumps into the Bubbulat-R. These scenes blur the line between fourth-wall breaking comedy and real-life marketing agreements, yet its always a fun interaction between the characters and the tiny pizza treats.
As with most MST3K jokes, some will stick the landing and get a laugh, or some will be a bit weak just to make the boring scene be a little more interesting. However, any comic that can insert a Devo and Talking Heads lyrics into the dialogue should make a child of the 80’s giggle. This is a series that isn’t afraid to poke fun of itself while making jokes on other comics. Kinga Forrester wants to see how far her experiment will go and Tom Servo is still trapped as a teenage reporter somewhere, so the next issue will bring back the robot-headed human.