Slight spoilers for Sweet Tooth: The Return #1
Sweet Tooth: The Return, the newest miniseries from creator Jeff Lemire and colorist Jose Villarrubia, welcomes fans back into a world where animal/human hybrids are on the run from a sinister force that isn’t too keen on letting them live their lives in peace. Premiering under the most prolific voices in the industry.
Lemire is no stranger to making stories that click with audiences while simultaneously giving them something they haven’t seen before, a feat that is doubly impressive since he not only writes, but also draws most of his own work. Whether it be his commentary on the superhero genre as a whole in his Black Hammer series, or something more traditional like his DC Comics run on Animal Man, Lemire puts it all into his work and the effort shines through.
Scrawled across the very first page of this new series are simply the words "300 years later," a fun mystery right off the bat that leaves fans wondering if Lemire is alluding back to his first series, or to another, unknown event that has yet to be revealed. From there, the parallels to the first issue of the original series make themselves clear as this new version of a boy with deer-like features ponders over his visions of another face that fans should recognize - a Big Man that he cannot rid from his mind - and how something is changing within him that he can't quite pinpoint just yet.
But soon enough, the story strikes out on its own as new wrinkles begin to emerge that are as intriguing to the main plot as they are interesting to draw comparisons from to the original series. With a switch-up in of the security that holds the boy inside of his living space as well as an angle that sees the boy being injected with some kind of concoction by the people that care for him, Lemire's writing and odd-yet-perfect visuals begin to paint a much darker picture of a world that might not be as similar as previously thought.
Eventually, the boy, just like the original protagonist, Gus, before him, takes it upon himself to cross the threshold that is his prison and is exposed to a twist that immediately puts The Return on a whole other level than its predecessor. But before long, things come back in line with how the first issue of the original series panned out, as the big reveal of a familiar (yet possibly entirely different) face stands over the boy just like it had before, ready to kickstart an epic journey. And it’s here that the brilliance of Lemire shines to its fullest as he deftly weaves threads together in a way that feels new, yet also gives a foreboding and mysterious feel as to how the remaining issues might continue, especially if the reader is up to speed with how the first series played out.
As the first issue comes to a close, it’s clear that Sweet Tooth: The Return has something fresh for returning fans and new ones alike while still adhering to the basic structure of what has come before. And even though this first issue feels more like the deep breath before the plunge, this reimagining is already on track to give Sweet Tooth enthusiasts an entirely new experience to appreciate and uncover over its six-issue run. Sweet Tooth: The Return #1 is available now
