Is It Worth The Dough?
Written By: Brockton McKinneyArt By: Sergio Rios, Marcelo Costa
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: February 24, 2016
Publisher: Action Labs: Danger Zone
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Now I don't know how many of you are familiar with Full Moon's Gingerdead Man film franchise, but in the early 2000's Full Moon wanted to continue their run of tiny terrors, but this time it took the form of an evil cookie, imbued with the soul of a killer named Millard Findlemeyer. It's pretty par for the course when it comes to these types of movies, but where I grew up loving films from Full Moon like Puppet Master and Demonic Toys, this series just seems to be all about over the top kills and pastry one-liners........ Yeah, it's a bit one dimensional, but having Gary Busey play the voice of the dangerous dessert actually made the first flick a hoot to watch. As much as I'm not the biggest fan of this franchise, I have watched all three of the movies and even the crossover film with the Evil Bong....... I think I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to Full Moon Features because I've been watching their movies for most of my life now and even when a flick comes out that I think will be a stinker right off the bat, I need to watch it and now that the Gingerdead Man has a comic out, I have to read it........ glutton. Let's jump into this issue for Just For The Hell of It Mondays and see if Action Labs: Danger Zone can capture the ingredients that are needed to make a killer cookie and if this series can expand on the film franchise, if not make it a bit more fun........... cause man do I dig the Puppet Master series from this publisher. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Now as over the top as the movie series is, I have to say that this issue starts out just as over the top, if not more...... which is crazy to say about something that deals with a killer gingerbread man, but we get a ridiculous gang that plans on using the setting of the original movie "Betty's Bakery", which is now abandoned, as their new base of operation for the distribution of a new drug that has hit the streets called "Confection". Yeah, of course it needs a baking term for it's name because this is Gingerdead Man, but I bet this ridiculous gang wishes it had a different name because since this drug is so powerful, they have to cut it by baking it into cookies and that's where we get our killer's resurrection for this series. Now, I don't know shit about cooking or baking, but apparently I know more than the lunkheads in this gang because there is no way that I would use some left over....... as the gang members say "Shit" to start my drug baking operation and wouldn't you know it, doing this bites them on the ass because within those cookie baking ingredients........ or shit, were the left over ashes of Millard Findlemeyer from when he was originally created into the demonic dessert in the first movie.
I'm a little confused though with the art because when our terror treat is first being created here, I'm not sure what's exactly going on. The two gang members who were left behind to start the baking, mixed some ingredients together and I'd assume that they put the concoction in an oven, but from the mystical mumbo jumbo that occurs with electricity coming out of the baking pot, I was thinking that they put a metal bowl in a microwave........ It all doesn't really matter because we just need a resurrection for our killer, but I was just confused....... because I'm one of those idiots who has put metal into a microwave. Another bit that I'm a little confused about is that since the Gingerdead was recreated using this drug "Confection", it kind of seems that he now has super strength, but I'm not really sure because all we get is the Gingerdead Man saying that he feels "better, stronger", but I'm not sure what being baked together with a powerful drug has to do with that............. Yeah, I'm probably reading way too much into this, but I'm a curious sort.
Throughout this issue, besides for the over the top gang members, we get introduced to Kayla, the owner of the business "Cup-A-Joe", next door to the now defunct "Betty's Bakery" and her rambunctious little brother Billy, who Kayla seems to be the guardian of. These two seem to be the protagonists of this title and while I would have liked to have had a little more with them, we got a caricature of an 80's movie gang instead....... and even though that sounds like a negative, it kind of works for this title and what it's doing. In the end, we get those two beginners at baking gang members and a perv-y old man, who just happened to be passing by and looking for a hand job slaughtered by our doughy degenerate and.............. our issue closes with the Gingerdead Man cutting off one of the old man's fingers so that he can become anatomically correct........ that's right, he puts the finger where his dong should be and from here on out I guess he plans on finger banging people to death............ Wow, that's a strange ending to this book, even with this character.
That's it for this first issue of Gingerdead Man and while I can't say that I'm a fan of the film series, even though I've watched them all and know way too much about them, I went into this with eager eyes and was hoping to find a series that I enjoyed as much as Action Labs: Danger Zone's take on the Puppet Master series.......... sadly, that did not happen. Yeah, the source material for this is over the top and ridiculous........ and believe me this follows suit with that, but I just didn't have a good time reading this for just those reasons. Like I said though, I'm not a huge fan of the film series so maybe this comic just isn't for me and my bias could be at work here, but I'd like to think that someone who's all about Gingerdead Man could get into this and have a good time. I had some issues with the art, but for all intents and purposes, it's pretty good and I actually enjoyed the cartoon-y feel that this offered and I have to admit that the way Gingerdead Man looked was fun as hell. All in all, I don't know if I'll continue with this series, but just like everything else out of Full Moon, I had to give it a shot.
Bits and Pieces:
While Gingerdead Man might not be for every comic reader, I have to say that for those who enjoy the film franchise, you'll certainly get what you'd expect from this comic, from its over the top kills to its baking one-liners. The art has a real cartoon-y feel and while I had some problems with it, overall it was fun to look at and the Gingerdead Man himself was perfectly captured in this style. This is a tough comic to rate because while I don't personally enjoy this character, I'm sure the fans will just eat this up, but I've gotta go with my gut here.
5/10
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