Harry is an alien who crash landed on Earth and several years later found himself the doctor of a small town. Harry has the ability to project a mental image so others see an ordinary-looking human, the one exception being a woman named Asta, who—naturally—works for him.

The Suicide Blonde #0 collects a three-chapter story featured in Dark Horse Presents and picks up right from where the first volume left off. As a standalone issue, I found it disappointing. The Suicide Blonde‘s major contribution to the Resident Alien story is to have Asta cover up that she knows Harry’s secret, which is a boring decision, and to confirm that Harry is willing to stay on in the town a while longer, which had been basically determined in the previous volume. The actual case name in the title doesn’t even play a part in this issue, which feels like a combination of filler and a reset button instead of taking the messy occurrences from Volume 1 and making them a part of the next arc.

These issues aside, The Suicide Blonde delivers the same great premise of an alien in these everyday, small-town situations. Harry’s initial discomfort and struggles with his leg injury are priceless as he brings a new definition to “doctor’s make the worst patients.” Issue #0 goes a step further by delivering a series of flashbacks detailing the government organization’s hunt for Harry, as well as our resident alien’s first experiences interacting with humanity, which are pretty funny. These extra details are nice but, like the rest of the issue, slow-paced and fail to advance the story.

Issue #0 does introduce one new element that should be fun going forward, and his name is Ethan, the town’s new “doctor.” Ethan is reportedly arrogant and at the same-time unsure in his abilities, but for the time being he is the official town doctor even if Harry is overseeing him. Again, like the other elements of the issue, his introduction isn’t handled as well as it could be. I use the word “reportedly,” because Ethan is barely shown; instead, we hear about him from others in a classic example of telling not showing.

Overall, Resident Alien is still a great series, and I’m looking forward to the next issue, but this #0 is largely unnecessary and can be skipped in lieu of getting to the meat of the story and our new mystery.

Two and a Half Servings of Small Town Meatloaf out of Five