Three years ago, Frankie Follis, the villain called Playtime, was betrayed by her girlfriend and left with a life in ruins. But she’s too stubborn to stay down-and-out forever. Your Major Spoilers review of Minor Threats: The Last Devil Left Alive #1 from Dark Horse Comics awaits!

MINOR THREATS: THE LAST DEVIL LEFT ALIVE #1

Writer: Patton Oswalt/Jordan Blum
Artist: Scott Hepburn
Colorist: Ian Herring
Letterer: Nate PIekos of Blambot
Editor: Daniel Chabon
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: October 1, 2025

Previously in Minor Threats: Frankie Follis, AKA the supervillain Playtime, has hit rock bottom. Her criminal empire was left in ruins after her ex-lover, Scalpel’s, betrayal. The secret deal she cut with the superhero team, The Continuum, was exposed along with her secret identity, forcing Frankie to flee, disappearing off the grid. Three years later, she’s resurfaced, recruiting friend and foe alike to help her uncover a secret that threatens Twilight City.

Grab your freeze-guns and power gauntlets, it’s time to join the underground!

ANOTHER EXCITING SCADLOCK ENTERPRISE

As Minor Threats: The Last Devil Left Alive #1 opens, we join corrupt surgeon Scalpel in her new role as Kingmaker of Twilight City. Together with venture capitalist jerk Jordan Scadlock, Scalpel has begun taking out all of her rivals, allowing Scadlock to buy out their lairs and warehouses, all the better to gentrify. She has failed, however, to find her ex-lover, Playtime, who has stayed in the shadows after another fall from grace. Unfortunately for Scalpel, she has outlived her usefulness to her oligarch partner, which is all prelude to how her limo ends up full of bullet holes. Even more disgraceful, she is forced to flee her would-be assassins on a BUS. (How very déclassé.) When she finally manages to limp home, only to find that her apartment is otherwise occupied by… herself?

It’s the kind of quandary that makes a woman happy to see her ex-lover bust through the window and engage in a murderous rampage that leaves one of her dead on the floor.

THE FLAWS OF THE FLAWLESS

The point-of-view narration that makes Minor Threats so fascinating is used to great effect in this issue, allowing us to see just how damaged Scalpel’s morality, heart, and mind are, and just how damaged she really is. It also makes the reveal at the end of the issue that Playtime is once again putting together a crew that much more exciting. The prospect of another team of misfit villains, the knowledge that Scalpel is fully willing to murder Playtime, and the reveal that their next mission is to recruit disgraced Superman-analogue, The Searcher, make it clear that Blum and Oswalt haven’t lost their touch. The art of Scott Hepburn has evolved as well, with a few moments that feel like clear homages to the late Kev O’Neill of Marshal Law and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen fame, and I couldn’t be happier. That sort of visual context makes the crushing squalor of Redport even more filthy and depressing, and nothing could make a comic nerd like me happier.

BOTTOM LINE: WHY AREN’T YOU READING THIS?

It’s always difficult to explain why one narrative works for a reader and another doesn’t, but Minor Threats: The Last Devil Left Alive #1 is an excellent example of the kind of story that doesn’t usually appeal to me, providing grimdark events and immoral characters trapped in dystopian squalor and failing at every turn to better themselves, earning 5 out of 5 stars overall. If you haven’t read it yet, you’ve been ignoring me long enough that you owe it to yourself to take advantage of this issue’s fabled “jumping-on point.”

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