There’s a new sweet shop on Manhattan’s lower east side. People have been lining-up to get in and shop. The shop isn’t just an obsession for New Yorkers. It’s something more than that. A local news crew is looking to investigate in Sweetie Candy Vigilante #4.Writer Suzanne Cafiero continues a story that is rendered for page and panel by artist Thiago Vale and colorist Antonio Fabela. The drama-heavy issue focuses itself largely away from the title character in an a chapter that greatly suffers from her absence. Cafiero’s drama is a bit weak without a central focus on what it is that makes the title character so appealing in the first place.

The news crew in question is being led by the mayor’s daughter...Athena Dreck. She’s interviewing everyone in the shop looking for the owner. It seems innocuous enough at first, but one things leads to another and there is the eventual showdown and battle of words between Athena and Sweetie herself. A little while later, the mayor has to deal with the outcome of that showdown. He might be the most levelheaded guy in all of Manhattan, but even he can’t stop the overall momentum of things. 

Cafiero’s focus on the mayor’s family feels like a solid departure from the central appeal of Sweetie Candy. The Harley Quinn-by-way-of-Candyland is a charming mash-up that deserves much more time with its central character. The mayor and his family simply aren’t given enough depth to be all that interesting by contrast, which is a pity as the central narrative of the story seems to be so rooted in them. Had Cafiero decided to focus a bit more on Sweetie and New Yorkers’ love of her, it might have made for a stronger series thus far.

Vale and Fabela have a really sharp sense of amplification in their art. The overall look and feel of the visuals in Sweetie’s New York have such a playful feel about them that really looks like a a weird mutation of Candyland-style art. It’s a lot of fun, but it doesn’t really get the center of the panel in an issue that focusses on the mayor. The art team hasn’t really found a way to do very much with a multi-page soap opera-style conversation between the mayor and his family. It just looks kind of dead on the page.

Though she’s obviously just a play on more popular characters, Sweetie has real potential to be something much more. There’s something to be said for the power of commerce in a world that is so obsessed with instant gratification. Caffiero doesn’t really harness anything in the story that feels like it’s speaking to anything larger than a cheesy political drama. Sweetie could easily meet some of her potential without doing anything terribly deep. Even a shallow action story would be preferable to what Caffiero is doing with the series.  It’s generally fun, but it could be a lot more than it is. 

Grade: C+