The “worst movie of all time,” Troll 2, holds a special place in film for being objectively awful, yet still managing to develop a cult following. So much so that Troll 2’s cult following has a documentary, referring to the film as the “best worst movie.”
Mother of Madness likewise is an objectively bad comic. But I’m going to make the claim that it is a uniquely bad book, that becomes strangely funny as you read it, and by the end you might be convinced that MoM is the Troll 2 of comics! Truly, the “best worst comic.”
Or, failing that, Mother of Madness one of the few bad comics that’s worth reading so you can calibrate your ability to sense bad writing.
Was there anything good?
As a rule, I always try to find something good from every comic I review. And there was one thing I liked from the story.
The villain
It took some reading, and reaching, to find something good about this book. But I did find it in the form of the main villain, Lucille Caldwell. I felt like she had the right kind of narcissistic and sociopathic qualities to have been a decent villain.
The book’s overall premise, to the extent I could find one, was about women’s insecurities. Lucille’s overall goal was to prey on those insecurities, gaining profit by developing a “perfect woman” pill. Handled better, I could have seen a story around this concept.
Another positive about Lucille. Since the villain is allowed to do as they please, this was the one character to be bombastic, and utterly unapologetic about who she is. The “World’s Best Human Trafficker” coffee mug on her desk was so cartoonishly villainous it was actually funny. Despite the evil, Lucille was by far the character with the most “character.”
Critiques
I kept the critique section to three items. Reading this book did teach me an important reader discipline: Take note of how you feel when reading a book.
A good writer will guide your emotions. A bad one will either fail to direct your emotion, or actively kill interest in the few things that look interesting.
Flow-killing dialogue
MoM’s writing is bad. But one strangely good thing about this book’s bad writing is that there is so much of it, and its so incoherent, you enter a state where the text blurs out of view. You just flip through the pages in a trance-like state. I’ve read the series twice, and can’t escape the effect. The writing is frustrating to read, but a few pages in you mentally give up and check out, and then you just start laughing at it.
The excessive speech bubbles were bad enough, but lets zoom in on two examples of dialogue:
A common sight in the book are micro-essays like this one, which interrupts the flow of the story. They rarely go anywhere once stated. Maybe used occasionally they could be funny, but by the time I saw this one it had become tedious.
All three books are full of moments like this, in which the conversations almost but don’t quite connect. In a few pages, characters talk past enough other, and you can’t get invested in the conversation.
Also, in dull moments the writer tries to spice things up with random comments about heroin-addicted raccoons, trenchcoats full of scorpions, and other things never shown. I’ve seen this in multiple mediocre comics, and it always comes across as a cheap shot. If you are going to write it, you have to show it, and make it a part of the story!
Maya never eats Thai food!
The page that made MoM (in)famous was the first page of Issue 1, which is Maya’s first exposition dump.
First… of many.
I latched onto this series initially to see if any chemical engineering took place in this book. It didn’t. After reading the first time I noticed Maya eating sushi at the end, and then realized… she never eats Thai food despite being a “Thai food junkie.
In the Black Hops 5 review I mentioned what a great job Mark Pellegrini did with queuing up events. In MoM, the Page 1 exposition dump does not queue up anything. You could skip all of the dialogue on that page, and you would not take anything away from the story.
The “love interests”
I think this panel sets the tone for Maya’s general unlikeability, but also, the implausibility of her having a relationship with Benny. Maya never suffers consequences for mis-treating Benny. She uses him often, and he just keeps simping. Even the “happy ever after” ending feels like Maya is mocking him.
And then there’s the other “love interest.” And the dialogue. This one is presented without further comment.
Could it have gone differently?
To the extent the story had a premise, that premise had to do with the main character, Maya Kuyper, overcoming anxiety and self-doubt. In other words, “recognizing her own awesomeness.” But what if, instead, this was a story about her coming to terms with her faults and learning about what is truly valuable in her life?
The thing is, this combined with the villain concept could have worked. You could start with an arrogant or near-insufferable hero. Over the story she tries resolving her issues on the assumption its her self-esteem, other people, or her hormones. As these fail, the villain’s “perfection pill” presents itself as an easy fix for all her problems…
Then, at the right time, the negative traits cause key people to leave her (maybe her son wants to live with the ex-husband?). Maybe it makes her desperate enough to accept a prescription of the villain’s “perfection pill.” But at just the right moment, she learns the key lesson that lets her refuse the pill. And then investigate it. And THEN we can get the climax of her finding the truth and facing Lucille.
And while most liked poking fun at a couple of infamous pages, I think the main takeaway for MoM is that it isn’t “bad all the way down,” but instead, the book mis-handled its premises. And after this, tried to cover writing problems with woke politics.
Troll 2 of comics?
At the beginning I presented the idea of MoM as the “best worst comic” and the “Troll 2 of comics.” So to close this review, I though it’d be fun to present a page from the story climax in the style of a Troll 2 meme.
What do you think? Best worst comic? Or “Please Mike, please don’t ever show or mention this again.” ? Let me know in the comments ;)
If this was literally a massive troll on the state of the modern comics "industry", its an impressive psy-op I must say. Anyway, good breakdown!
Dude, I remember trying to read this. I didn't pass the first page.
I learned form the KA team to talk the least and only if it's important for the story development.