Napoleon Dynamite #4: Revelations

Napoleon Dynamite #4
Written by: Carlos Guzman-Verdugo & Alejandro Verdugo
Art and Colors by: Jorge Monlongo
Design and Letters by: Christa Miesner
Cover by: Sara Richard
Assistant Edits by: Megan Brown & Elizabeth Brei
Edited by: Tom Waltz
Released: Feb. 5, 2020

Two mysteries are resolved in this issue, so if this is the first post you're seeing, you might want to jump back to the beginning. Or get your hands on this fun series and read along.

We get the answer to the manipulated election first, as Napoleon and Joana share the copy store video with the Preston High School principal. The bogus ballots were copied by notorious tater tot-crusher Don Moser, and all 95 were for his girlfriend, Summer Wheatley. So not only was Pedro the winner, it was by a much larger margin than originally thought.

Joana apologizes to Pedro and finds more common ground with Napoleon as they discuss cryptids and detective work. Soon they decide to pool their resources again to solve the other pressing mystery of this series – who killed Councilman Doug Young?

Napoleon knows Uncle Rico isn't guilty, but doubts the police will believe he saw him doing yoga on the night in question. So he and Joana return to the ditch/gulch where Young met his demise and find a clue: a discarded bracelet.

The next step in this episode of “CSI: Preston” is consulting the local bracelet expert, Deb. When they find a match for the bracelet – on Napoleon's wrist! – our hero comes to the only logical conclusion he can:

Luckily, Deb and Joana have an alternate solution: going back to where Napoleon got his bracelet, the A.C.E. Combat dojo. Tracking down sensei Brock Montana, the trio extract a confession: he confronted Young about denying his zoning petition to open his dojo across from Rex Kwon Do. As is the case in roughly 40% of the episodes of “Bones,” he didn't mean to kill him but took advantage of the circumstances once it happened.

Joana stops the fleeing Brock with help from Napoleon and some hot sauce she bought off Uncle Rico. Meanwhile, Deb calls the police for a more practical resolution.

At the State of the Student Union, Pedro acknowledges what most of us have realized by now: Deb would make a much better student body president than him. He resigns, in part because he's not sure if he can legally hold that office after stumbling into becoming Young's replacement on the Preston City Council.

As the sun sets and balance is restored, Napoleon's mind wanders back to the opening scene with the college counselor and maybe an actual career with the FBI.

This was a great wrap-up to the series, and not just because I one of the mysteries, the role of the zoning issue in Young's death, partially right (you may recall I don't have a great track record on that). Despite the grim and gritty cover, the characters act like they should but do more than repeat jokes from the movie.

I admit I thought at one point the writers might be setting up a romance between Napoleon and Joana, but the resolution emphasized even more why Deb and Napoleon fit so well together. Both are loyal, but Deb's a grounded realist while Napoleon is, well, Napoleon. Deb will be a fantastic student president but she never would have come up with Napoleon's dance that secured Pedro's victory in the movie. Had Napoleon and Joana confronted Brock alone, he would have escaped, but not with his dignity.

I'm no expert on comic sales, but this limited series was outside the top 300 sellers except for the first issue, according to comic sales-tracking website Comichron. I don't know if that justifies another entry, although IDW did release a Valentine's Day one-shot the same month as issue 4. At the very least, I'll be on the lookout for that but I wouldn't mind seeing Guzman-Verdugo, Verdugo and Monlongo take another crack at these characters.