Trouble: Millar’s lost gem

I avoided Trouble like the plague when it first appeared. I read the rumors that this somehow involved Aunt May and Uncle Ben (from Spider-Man) in their teenage years. When I read Trouble, I vaguely remembered this and put that out of my mind completely. I was engrossed in the story of two girls and two guys going away to work at a Hamptons resort for the summer and engaging in late adolescent flings. It’s on the same level as Dirty Dancing, but with a more honest approach to sexual behavior between seventeen year old kids. It’s a bit shocking that this didn’t cause a controversy beyond the fan base and into the mainstream media. You have Richard and Mary (the parents of Peter Parker) putting off sex—because Mary has been told by a fortune teller that she will have a kid if she has sex before the age of 20. Then on the other hand, you have Ben and May pulling out a condom on the final page of #1 and then some pillow talk and another romp at the beginning of issue 2. It’s PG-13, under the covers sex—nothing you won’t see on regular TV dramas. Terry Dodson, who is renowned for drawing big-breasted babes like Black Cat and Harley Quinn, tones down his usual depictions to create more realistic images. Things bloom into a love triangle between Ben, May, and Richard, and you realize this is Millar’s attempt to bring Romance comics back into the modern era. A Romance comic that talks about sex, drinking, and teen pregnancy—a far cry from Young Romance. It’s pretty shocking to read the first few pages of the fifth issue and find May in bed with a trucker: “You haven’t met Paulo and I don’t think you’d like him either. He smells like battery acid and imports shower curtains for a living.”

It’s a far cry from the Aunt May I was introduced to back in Amazing Spider-Man #39, a saint of a woman, constantly frail and at death’s door. This version of May is so distant, she’s not even in the same universe (hint, hint). I like the story’s conclusion just fine, but I am sorry I didn’t give this a fair shake when it came out. I can’t even find a trade paperback for it. Sheesh! Nuff said.

Link: Wikipedia article on Trouble