The Maze Agency

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The Maze Agency is an American mystery comic book series created by Mike W. Barr and first published in 1988. It revolves around a pair of detectives (Jennifer Mays and Gabriel Webb) and their adventures solving puzzling murders. It was first published by Comico Comics for 7 issues in 1988-1989, and when that company ceased operations, it was picked up by Innovation Comics for another 16 issues (8-23), continuing the numbering and running to 1991 plus an annual and a special. Caliber Comics brought it back in the late 90s as a three-issue miniseries. IDW then published 3 issues in the early 2000s.

The Maze Agency was a "fair-play" detective series, where the readers were presented with the same clues the characters were, and thus an equal chance to solve the crimes.

The main characters are:

  • Jennifer Mays is a smart, tough, and sexy ex-CIA agent who runs the private detective agency for which the comic is named. Gabriel Webb is one of the few people to see her softer, tender side.
  • Gabriel Webb is a true-crime writer who longs to create more cerebral stories than his sensationalist editors like. He's a little scatterbrained and easily distracted, but has a first-rate deductive mind. Although, he's romantically involved with May and helps her with many of her cases, he feels that the relationship makes accepting her repeated offer to join her business professionally inappropriate.
  • Detective Roberta Bliss is an NYPD homicide detective of Puerto Rican descent whom Webb and Mays often deal with in solving cases. She is sometimes annoyed by their tendency to complicate cases, but knows that they have the ability to crack murders that she'd have a hard time solving alone.
  • Ashley Swift is the head of the rival Swift Detective Agency, and Jennifer's former boss. She's a good detective, though not as good as Jen and Gabe, but her arrogance has a habit of rubbing her ex-employee the wrong way.
Tropes used in The Maze Agency include:
  • The Alleged Car: Gabe's beater.
  • Always Murder
  • Catch Phrase: Gabe's "It's as simple as gravity" whenever he experiences a Eureka Moment.
  • Cool Car: Jennifer's 1958 Corvette.
  • Dead Man's Chest: In "Moving Stiffs" in The Maze Agency Annual #1, a dead body turns up in one of Gabe's moving boxes when he is moving into Jennifer's apartment. Naturally this leads Gabe and Jen into investigating where the body came from.
  • Death in the Clouds: "The Mile High Corpse"
  • Dirty Harriet: Lt. Bliss poses as a hooker in The Maze Agency Annual story that was a homage to The Spirit.
  • Dying Clue
  • Eureka Moment: In almost every issue, some seemingly random comment or event will start the gears spinning in Gabe's head and cause him to suddenly see the soloution to the current mystery.
  • Expy: Senor Lobo was an acknowledged expy of Hercule Poirot.
  • Fair Cop: Jennifer Mays
  • Fair Play Whodunnit
  • Femme Fatalons: The murderer in one issue used her long nails to slit her victim's thraot. The vital clue was that she cut her nails immediately afterward to hide the evidence.
  • Friend on the Force: Lt. Bliss
  • Gentleman Thief: The Rogue (who never actually appears on stage) (at least, not AS the Rogue; he does show up as his "civilian" identity). His Calling Card is a note informing his victims that their stolen paintings have been selected for his 'Rogue's Gallery' and 'signed' with a cartoon figure (a'la The Saint's haloed stick figure).
  • Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: In "The Two Wrong Rhoades", Jen and Ashley (both dressed in Spy Catsuits) end up grappling each other in a darkened room. Upon hitting the lights, Gabe's reaction is:

"With a few gallons of mud, and some beer, my evening would be complete!"

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