Third Wheel is peak Reckless Life. The art does continue to mostly improve but I was never in my life more on my game than during this three-issue mini-series. It wasn't an intentional part of the “three” motif, but I was also cranking out three pages of finished art a week at this point, which is kind of crazy. (I may or may not have been doing no small amount of lettering and coloring at my day job when the boss wasn’t looking but still.)
Not only was the height of production for RL but I think this is RL doing what it did best as well as it ever did it. When I started out with this book the idea was to create an Indiana Jones/James Bond style action hero that doesn’t really change that much and in that regard, I failed spectacularly. Third Wheel is all about these three characters that I created and how they play off one another.
I also never really intended to do an Avengers-style “oh hey, they’re all in this one” story but when I was working on the ideas for this story, I was very single in a world of married people and found myself, say it with me, as the third wheel a lot. That turn of phrase sparked something in me, and the rest was kind of easy, as I had spent enough time with these characters in my head that I just put them together and let them argue.
When I’m feeling nostalgic, this is the RL story I’m most likely to read, but if you’re stumbling on this story first, I’d recommend reading Mad at the World and Dinner and a Robbery first to get the most out of it.