In Summation, Aliens
Writer: Bill Morrison
Artist, Interior and Cover: Kelley Jones
Colorist, Interior and Cover: Michelle Madsen
Letterer: Rob Leigh
Back-up Script and Art: Bill Morrison
Back-up Letterer: Saida Temofonte
Cover Price: $4.99
On Sale Date: June 22, 2017
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**
Another unlikely team-up from the Looney Tunes titles
coming this month, I think that in the interest of full disclosure I should say
outright that I like the character Lobo more than the Road Runner. I thrilled
to the exploits of Wile E. Coyote and that rascally bird as a kid, but by the
time I was the wizened age of ten I found such physical humor beneath me. But
Lobo, that’s comedy for real thinkin’ people! So let’s see how this peanut
butter and jelly sandwich tastes and check out my review of Lobo/Road Runner Special #1, right here!
Explain
It!
So this story takes a different tack from the other
Looney Tunes/DC team-ups we’ve seen so far: it attempts to explain how the
Looney Tunes were created. It seems that in the 1940s and 50s, during the first
major UFO flap of the 20th century, animals were knocked out in the
shadow of atomic testing and injected with some alien goop retrieved from the
scene of the Roswell UFO crash to, uh, see what happens. And this happened at
Area 52 (of course) just to round out the pedigree. They’re all kept in tanks
of green fluid—and they sort of look like the characters they’re supposed to
be, except a little darker. Well, one day, they all escape—and presumably
there’s a story to be told about a ravenous Sylvester the Cat, stealing babies
from nurseries and clawing authorities with razor-sharp retractable talons, but
the character we’re interested in here is the coyote. Who, in having freed
himself using a hairpin and a chemical explosive, has proven to be quite…wily.
Out in the wild, the coyote searches for food, and
eventually finds an elusive road runner. Throughout the decades, he attempts to
eat the bird, and every time he is thwarted in the most Looney Tunesical of
fashions. Eventually, the coyote is recaptured and brought back to Area 52,
where he’s in a cell next to Sam the Sheepdog…who is more like Sam the humanoid
cartoon dog monster. He teaches the coyote to speak, and then suggests that he
hop into space and hire famous bounty hunter Lobo to kill the road runner. So,
to make a long story short, the coyote does that, and happens upon Lobo on his
way to fulfill another contract—so the coyote agrees to complete that if Lobo
will kill the road runner instead. So it turns out the guy the coyote has to
kill is Kilowog of the Green Lanterns, but he convinces the one that hired him
(a failed Lantern recruit) to drop the contract. Meanwhile, Lobo isn’t having
much luck with the road runner, being subjected to similar humiliations endured
by the coyote for decades. Then it turns out this was all orchestrated by the
original Area 52 scientist or something? I dunno, I lost interest in this pages
ago.
The back-up is a more cartoonish story featuring
several Warner Bros. cartoon characters, wherein Bugs Bunny makes Lobo fulfill
the final eight pages as part of a contractual obligation. It’s not hilarious,
but there are funny moments. The other story, however, is just so boring. Lots
of back and forth, superfluous information that drives the story nowhere, and a
whole sci-fi angle that was bloated and unsatisfying. Kelley Jones provides a
creepy vibe that, while entirely his style, may not have been warranted in a
book that is essentially a complete goof on the face of it. And probably should
have been written as more of a goof.
Bits and
Pieces:
Harken ye to the sad tale of a mutated coyote's unrequited desire to catch and eat a road runner. Leave with heavy hearts but enlightened minds...or lightened minds. This story is pretty boring to be starring the Main Man and the Fast and the Furious of the Looney Tunes set. The back-up is nominally better.
5.5/10
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