JAY & SILENT BOB: JAYS OF FUTURE PAST / Written by KEVIN SMITH / Pencils by GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI / Inks by CAM SMITH & ROBERTO POGGI / Colors by MARCIO MENYZ & ERICK ARCINIEGA / Letters by VC’S TRAVIS LANHAM & JOE SABINO / Published by MARVEL COMICS

My expectations were firmly set heading into Jay & Silent Bob: Jays of Future Past. I was expecting a lot of in-jokes – both for Marvel Comics and the View Askewniverse. It’s a Kevin Smith comic, for crying out loud! How could I not? What I did not expect, however, was for some of the jokes to be go beyond the reliable material upon which Smith has come to depend.

The story is fairly basic stuff. Doctor Doom gets word from Kang the Conqueror that he has no hope of conquering Earth and establishing the perfect world Kang will someday inherit because of Jay and Silent Bob. This leads to an army of Doombots trying to kill New Jersey’s least-favorite sons. It also leads to various Marvel mainstays trying to save or kill the doobie-selling duo themselves.

Smith is in comfortable territory, which is both a blessing and a curse. Naturally, Brodie from Mallrats has a cameo trying to get Ben Grimm to answer questions about his “thing.” Conversely, there’s a joke I don’t want to spoil which involves an honestly unexpected joke about superhero sex lives and an answer so stunning it shocks even Jay. For every predictable gag or expected cameo, there’s something pleasantly surprising.

I am torn, however, on if Smith made mistakes regarding the continuity or was having his own laugh at the fanboys who will complain about those mistakes. By way of a for instance, Mister Fantastic says this story takes place on Earth-616. However, we see Emma Frost, in her classic lingerie costume, with diamond powers, as part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. (My No-Prize explanation for this is that Richards clearly doesn’t know the proper designation of his Earth.) On the other hand, Smith is the only Marvel writer in 15 years who seems to remember that Black Widow has a Russian accent.

Personally, I think it more likely that Smith won’t let a little thing like continuity get in the way of a good joke. Or even a bad joke. So if he has Emma Frost on the wrong team just to set up a line about a White Queen/Jean Grey/Sue Storm threesome, there is a reason. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad jokes. Particularly every gag about Jay and Silent Bob getting old, which doesn’t really work when artist Giuseppe Camuncoli draws them looking like they just left the set of Chasing Amy.

Apart from that one bit of weirdness, the art is excellent. There is always a danger on any book with multiple inkers, colorists and letterers that it will lack uniformity. Somehow, it is not an issue here, despite having an art team made up of seven individual artists.

In the end, Jays of Future Past does what it set out to do. It crosses the Marvel Universe and View Askewniverse over and tries to make the people who enjoy both settings laugh. I personally think it accomplished this, but those who don’t enjoy Kevin Smith’s writing will not have their minds changed.