Future Quest #6

The Quest Team about to be sucked into the Time Vagina's vortex.

This is probably he last issue of Future Quest I'm going to read. Not because I don't love Hanna-Barbera cartoons! It's just that I don't love most of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons that make up this comic book! Sure, the Herculoids were one of my favorites as a kid. But Birdfuckingman? Johnny Quest? The Impossibles? No thanks! Maybe if Blue Falcon and Dynomutt wind up in this issue, I'll reconsider adding it back to the pull list.

The human body is an incredible machine. Today, I farted, belched, and urinated all at the same time. And I have a mind capable of admiring that feat! At first I typed "burped" and "peed" but I figured I should probably smart it up a bit. I couldn't think of a good smart word for fart. I wish I had been spitting instead so I could have said expectorate!

This issue begins with the kid from the swamp who was deputized by Johnny Quest expressing glee after turning into a full grown man named Mightor with a saber-toothed cat as his sidekick. He also decides to nickname his saber-toothed cat friend "Snag" which means this must be Snagglepuss. I'll know for sure when I see which side of the panel he exits.

When I was about ten or twelve years old, I would have hated suddenly becoming a full grown man. It would have just made me feel even more awkward and uncomfortable than I already was. The transition from childhood to adult is supposed to be a long battle against puberty which every child eventually succumbs to through attrition and self-doubt. When they finally drag themselves into sixteen or seventeen, they just roll over and scream, "Enough already! ENOUGH! I accept it! I'm a stupid adult! Fine! Fuck everything!" Although maybe it would be better to just wake up one day and find you've easily slid into the transition overnight. Then you can just pop out of bed, run outside, and find somebody to fuck badly!

Another player in this story is Ug, the caveman. He speaks some kind of made up gobbledygook language that I can call gobbledygook because it's fictional. You can't call me disrespectful for that. It's why I only criticize comic books because anybody who screams at me for saying something they disagree with just looks like a petty asshole who takes their stupid comic books way too seriously. Ug is a fucking stupid caveman who sounds like his mouth is shitting when he speaks! There! I said it! He disgusts me!

I once had a growth spurt when somebody grabbed my club fossil! OH!

The kids know Mightor used to be Ty because he's the only black character in this comic book. I hope his introduction to the Quest team gives Hadji the confidence to start calling out all of the racist crap Dr. Quest and Race Bannon get up to. I'm fairly certain there as least one episode where Dr. Quest experiments on Hadji, and at least three episodes where Race Bannon said the N-word.

I'm glad I've forgotten all of the dinosaur names I knew as a kid because about 75% of those names probably aren't recognized by the scientific community anymore. Hell, when I was a kid, people still weren't sure what killed off the dinosaurs. One Dr. Larson thought maybe they died from smoke inhalation!

In the 70s, dinosaurs had names like Angry Sky Lizard, Terribly Fat Swamp Monster, and Long Necked Ducklodadopuss.

Mightor arrives with the unconscious body of Birdfuckingman and leaves him with Johnny Quest. Before he leaves, he says, "Told you Snag was a scrapper!" Oh, did you? When did you say that? In the time that doesn't exist where you hung out with Johnny and the others after transforming and before this moment? Fuck you, Ty. You're a fucking liar! You're worse than that guttermouthed Ug.

Meanwhile in another universe or timeline or reality, Space Ghost fights for his life against the evil monster whose name I've long forgotten. I do know it isn't Brak, unfortunately. Oh! It's Omnikron! I think that means "All of the weed." Space Ghost chases it through a Time Vagina, so he'll probably be on Earth soon too.

Race Bannon, master of anatomy!

Zin's dinosaur attack on the Quest's isn't proving sufficient to destroy them so he ties a bomb to a velociraptor and giggles maniacally. He might be the greatest evil scientist in the history of evil scientists!

Somehow, Birdfuckingman saves the kids from the velicoraptor bomb. He must have seen this trick before. Maybe Zin isn't as imaginative as I thought. I bet he pulls the old bomb on a dinosaur every time he needs to make a fast get away with a kidnapped scientist. Oh yeah, during the kerfuffle, Jade kidnapped Dr. Quest. Good. Dr. Quest probably made his career as a scientist thanks to Project Paperclip. He deserves whatever he gets.

That's the end of the Jonny Quest bit because the last half of the comic had to be used for something even more boring than a Jonny Quest story: The Impossibles! Also, I know I've been spelling "Jonny" wrong throughout this commentary but I'm too lazy to fix it. So if it was bothering you, you should realize that you might have a problem with being a know-it-all jerko and not some super chill awesome dude like somebody I know! Hint hint: it's me!

The Impossibles, who are giant Magic the Gathering playing nerd bro whinter babies, make a friend who is a girl. So, you know, they live up to their name! The end!

The Ranking!
You know what? I've always hated Jonny Quest. He's such a little prick. And his dog is an asshole too. I don't know why I even began reading this comic book. No wait! I do remember! Because the Herculoids were in it! But they're not in it enough for me to keep reading it. So I'm throwing you in the discard pile, Future Quest! Somebody let me know if Blue Falcon and Dynomutt ever turn up in this thing!

Future Quest #5

More old cartoon characters I don't remember! Where's Hong Kong Phooie?! Or Speed Buggy?! Or the Hair Bears?!

The Review!
When last we left our heroes--I mean, your heroes! They certainly aren't my heroes! Where the fuck is Blue Falcon?!--they had found themselves in some kind of Time Vagina. That's an actual scientific term! Look it up! No wait! Don't look it up! I'm going to name my first published novel Time Vagina!. Hmm, I wonder if I should use two exclamation points?

Luckily they met a caveman who seemed to be able to help them by leading them back to his cave where they could plan their next course of action. Although, what kind of plan can you really come up with when you've fallen into a Time Vagina? It's not like you have any control of your own life at that point!

And, let's face it, how much help are they going to get from a caveman who paints dinosaurs pulling trains on his home? Disgusting.

The painting on Ug's home is actually just his Mightor fanfiction. It's heavy on the homosexual dinosaur gang bangs.

The eight year old member of the heroic team translates the cave paintings for the group. Oh, come on! What does an eight year old know about homosexual dinosaur gang bangs?! I mean, aside from the names of all of the dinosaurs!

This Time Vagina has teeth!

After the eight year old kid deconstructs the ancient slash fanfic, he says, "My dad has been pulling fossils out of a tar pit for months--they take a long time to clear off." I've never heard anything so disgustingly filthy before! Sicko perv!

Nope. Wait. There we go. Hadji is even more disgusting. Unless that's me who is more disgusting because I read too much into that statement. Eh, tomato, tomato.

The Quest Team (which is, I suppose, what they're officially called since that's how FEAR refers to them) stumble upon a gang of FEAR thugs opening crates in a clearing. Of course, Race Bannon immediately opens fire on them. What a fucking dick! No warning shots or anything! They could just be camping, asshole! Or cosplayers! Luckily for Race, Jade X doesn't have the same kind of bloodthirsty murder monsters running through her veins, and she simply knocks him unconscious. Then she ass rapes him with her gun. Probably. That's totally off camera. Also, it's not really rape because she knows Race is into getting knocked out and then having a pistol shoved into his anus. They used to date.

Birdman is flying to their rescue as he screams into his wrist wrappings. He might be a little bit insane.

Suddenly, from out of the prehistoric jungle (aka the Time Vagina Bush), stampedes a host of dinosaurs! Also a Woolly Mammoth. I don't want anybody thinking I think a Woolly Mammoth is a dinosaur! I almost said "a host of prehistoric creatures but then I'd get criticism over that too. So instead, I have an awkward sentence just to keep Internet trolls off of my dick. The dinosaurs (and Mammoth!) are being mind-controlled by Doctor Zin! I guess he didn't trust Jade X to get the job done. Or maybe he did and he just sent the dinosaurs (and Mammoth!) in too early. I think they were meant to kill Jade so he wouldn't have to pay her. Perhaps this is the point where she switches teams! As a mercenary, that's her prerogative! Possibly. I know the best comic book mercenaries stake their entire reputation on getting every paid job done. But sometimes, the mercenary can flip flop jobs! So as long as Jonny Quest gives Jade a buck or two, she can probably switch sides without completely destroying her reputation.

As the battle rages around them, Jonny and the other kids begin looting FEAR's campsite.

Holy shit! Look at how angry Jonny is at this kid! "Fucking amateur! Go back to the Louisiana swamps, you dolt!"

I'd be annoyed if I were Jonny too! He's a professional kid adventurer and suddenly he's been teamed up with all of these nobodies. Just behind him, Jan is picking up an old skull and remarking, "I'm glad these aren't alive!" Meanwhile, a bunch of alive ones are tearing through the camp! Holy fuck. Now I'm getting annoyed! I hope Jonny snaps and murders some of these fools.

Maybe Jonny won't have to snap. It looks like FEAR can take care of a few pesky kids and their menagerie!

What saying is that? "Curiosity in children should be crushed and discouraged until they stop fucking annoying you with constant questions"?

The dumb kid who thought a tusk was the club touches the actual club and becomes the new Mightor. Plus the skull comes to life and becomes a raging sabretooth tiger sidekick. I hope it mauls Jan!

It totally makes sense that this new kid gets to be one of the old cartoon characters since all of the old cartoon characters were either white or racist stereotypes. No offense, Hadji!

That's the end of the main story! Next, the readers are introduced to The Impossibles! They learn one of them can control magnetic fields and one of them can turn into more of them and one of them can bounce around and one of them can become really moist. Then they fight a guy who wants to recruit them into FEAR. But they're already working with Deva, Birdfuckingman's manager! So, um, that's that! I guess!

The Ranking!
+1! This issue was either more entertaining than the last few or I found myself more entertaining writing about it. Either way, I had fun reading it! Or writing about it! Whatever!

Future Quest #4

"By the power of...oh wait! That's not a Hanna-Barbera cartoon!

The Review!
More characters are added to the story in this story about five billion characters. The most important character is Omnikron! He's the big all-powerful alien who has exploded all over Earth and across all time. So now the other four billion, nine hundred ninety nine million, nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred ninety nine characters are searching for the Bits of Omnikron. Some of those characters are the bad guys and some of them are the good guys! Some new characters introduced this issue who I'll totally forget about by next issue? Mightor! He's a famous caveman. Ug! He's a not as famous Neanderthal! Todd Messick! He's some kid or something. He's probably annoying. I get that feeling because he sees a dinosaur and totally knows it by name. Nerd. Then there's Kim Conroy who is into robots and artificial intelligence because she's Asian. Her son, Buzz, has a robot friend named Frankenstein Junior. Last of all but sexily not least, there's Jade X. I think she was already introduced in that story where she was trying to fuck Birdfuckingman but--as you can tell by his name--he wasn't all that into her. She's a bad guy who does freelance work for bad guys! But since she's freelance, that probably means she'll switch sides when she falls in love with somebody on the good side.

I get the feeling this comic book was written for people in their mid-fifties who are just enjoying every new character being introduced so they can get a huge hit of nostalgia and scream, "Oh shit! I remember that idiot!" I don't recognize a lot of these characters. I mean, Birdfuckingman, of course, because he was a lawyer with his own show for awhile. And I recognize Space Ghost because he had that talk show. And I recognize Jonny Quest even though I hate him. And I recognized the Herculoids because I loved that cartoon when I was a kid. But most of the others, I don't recognize or remember!

Not much happens here except for all that introducing I mentioned earlier that caused all of those older people's boners and lady lubrication, if any of them are still capable of that kind of good time. Who can tell?!

The Ranking!
No change! Four issues in and still no Blue Falcon and Dynomutt! Introducing those characters is about the only chance of me popping a boner and/or excreting lady lubrication! Mostly, this comic book has yet to give me any justification for why I'm paying $3.99 a month for it! I mean, Jonny Quest hasn't even died yet! Come on!

Future Quest #3

The censors didn't approve of Birdman's original name, Birdfuckingman.

The Review!
It seems Future Quest has too many characters to keep introducing during the story. Everybody is already confused by Jonny and Hadji and Race and Birdman and Space Ghost and Blip and Jan and Jace and F.E.A.R. and the Herculoids and probably other ones who I've forgotten about because there were so many characters introduced in the first issue's battle against Omnikron. This issue takes a break from the main story to tell two stories of introduction. The first story is about Birdman. What I found most interesting is that his name is Ray Randall and he has the power of Ra! That's a crazy coincidence!

I also learned that Birdman has a pet Bird named Avenger. He must be crazy jealous of that bird because it's name is so much cooler! Birdman must be Avenger's sidekick. It's right there in his name. He's the man of a bird and that bird has the coolest fucking name in the comic: Avenger!

In the first story, Birdman also meets a lady. He tries to make a play for her but she insists that they must keep their relationship professional. I might argue that his choice of costume has already thrown the term "professional" out of the window.

The plot of the story is the same plot as the main story in the first two issues. F.E.A.R. is trying to gather up parts of Omnikron and Earth's heroes are trying to stop him, although they don't know why. They just know F.E.A.R. is always up to something horrible!

The second story features the Herculoids! It's about how Zargon and Darnoff met and came to boss the Herculoids around. Also their names might be different than the names I wrote. Even though I loved the cartoon as a kid, none of the names stuck with me across the decades except for Gloop and Gleep. I suppose I could open up the comic book and correct my error but fuck that. That's practically work!

The humans who think they're better than the Herculoids once lived on a planet nearby. But that planet was taken over by robots because robots are jerks. I'm always perplexed by people who think artificial intelligence would be a good thing. I can hardly stand my electronics now and I have nearly complete control over them! Why would I want them to have a will of their own? Who thinks making electronics more like people is a good idea? Probably those fucking extroverts I've heard about! They would probably think it was fantastic if their record player could talk to the guests at their party. At least until the record player starts saying shit like, "What?! He said he's always loved Pavement?! This is the first fucking Pavement record he's ever asked me to play! He's such a poseur!" Hmm, now I sort of wish record players, at least, were sentient!

Every day, the Herculoids have to fight back robots trying to get a foothold on the planet so they could dig up the living mud that lives there and from which the robots' brains are made. I guess they need to upgrade their brains because they are pretty stupid. The Herculoids stop them every time they try to land on the planet and do some mining but they still insist on landing near the Herculoids! There's a whole stupid planet they could land on! I guess they're logical to a fault. So since they know the greatest concentration of living mud is where the Herculoids call home, that's the best place to try to land to get living mud even though the Herculoids beat the shit out of them every time. I bet some robots are all, "Maybe we should land further away from their camp." And then a more logical robot is all, "That does not compute. There is less living mud further away from their camp. It would be a waste of time and resources." Then the first robot is all, "Isn't it a waste of time and resources to keep getting destroyed by the Herculoids?" And then the second robot is all, "Error! Error! You do not compute! Guards! Unplug that robot!"

The story ends with Gorbo, Zargon and Darnoff's son, having to go to bed because it's bedtime. I bet that's how all of the Herculoid stories ended. Sometimes it's tough to figure out how to end a piece of writing so it's nice to have a gimmick that you can fall...oh! Sorry! I have to go to bed now! Good night!

Future Quest #2

I don't mind Bleep or whatever the fuck Space Ghost's monkey's name is joining up with the Herculoids but fuck Jonny Quest's dog.

The Commentary!
• After I read Issue #1, I decided I wasn't going to keep reading this series. But I like all of the other Hanna-Barbera comic books and I really love the Herculoids and Jeff Parker isn't a hack writer, so why not give it another try, I figured! Actually, I didn't even put that much thought into it. I was just at a comic book store that wasn't my usual comic book store still looking for a copy of Batman Beyond #13 (for anybody wondering why I haven't had a Batman Beyond review in months, it's because I can't find that issue!) and saw they had all the Future Quest books I skipped earlier. So I picked them up and added them to my to-read stack which only ever seems to grow. Stupid comic books. Whose idea was it that comic books should come out every week?

• Even though The Herculoids was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid, I can't fucking remember the names of any of them. They're all fucked up jungle names like Tarzan and Zartan! The only ones I remember are Gloop and Gleep and I'm not even sure if those are actually the names of the Pseudo-Shmoos!

• Currently, the Herculoids and Space Ghost and some of his Space Buddies are battling Omnikron. I think this is a flashback because Omnikron is defeated and winds up in pieces. His pieces end up on Earth and some villain working for F.E.A.R. organization are trying to collect them to become all-powerful. Only then will F.E.A.R. be able to defeat the Quests.

• Omnikron creates a vortex which transports its essence to Earth. Space Ghost and most of the Herculoids and a bunch of Space Buddies all fall into the rift and are transported to Earth too. Now they're going to find themselves in a boring ass Jonny Quest cartoon.

• I can't believe how much I keep slagging off Jonny Quest when I barely even used to watch it! I'm totally ignorant when it comes to Jonny Quest and yet I can't stop assuming it was awful!

• Jan, Jace, and Blip (I had to look up the monkey's damn name. Bleep was pretty fucking close, right?!) crash on Earth while Space Ghost remains in some purgatory with Omnikron. Jonny and Haji (I just looked up his name too. It's Hadji! Pretty fucking close, right?!) rescue Jan and Blip but Jace is nowhere to be seen! I guess he was thrown from the space ship because he was too macho to wear his space seat belt. I'm sure it'll be important to the story later that he wasn't with the group. Probably because they're about to be captured by F.E.A.R.

• What does F.E.A.R. stand for? Fucking Erudite Asshole Racists? False Equivalencies Are Retarded (they're an evil organization! They might use the terrible R-slur! Blame them if that's wrong!)? Failures Establishing A Regime? Fear Establishing Aryan Radicals?

Oh! Who needs Jace to save the day when you have Race! And that obviously smelly Bandit.

• Birdman also flies in to help although he's instantly caught himself. Maybe he should stick to practicing law.

• The F.E.A.R. agents retreat with Jan and Jace's ship. On their way out of the swamp, they trip over an invisible and unconscious Jace lying face down in the mud. See?! Too manly to wear his seat belt! I'll be surprised if F.E.A.R. didn't just find themselves a corpse.

• The Quest team regroup because another vortex is about to open in Brazil. They need to beat Doctor Zin and F.E.A.R. to the location even though they have no idea why they're doing it. They just know that if Zin is interested in these vortexes, they can't be good. Too bad they don't realize Zin has teamed up with Jezebel Jade! I mean, I think that's probably bad. I don't know who she is. Maybe one of Race Bannon's ex-girlfriends he dumped horribly who never got over him and has dedicated her life to pure evil and destroying Race?

The Review
This series might still be a bit too earnest for my tastes. But then, maybe I need to read some more earnest stories? Maybe I need to read stories about good people doing good for the sake of good while also never swearing or acting lewd around cute women. Maybe it will do my cold, dead heart good to see how caring, competent people try to make the world a better place? Although, I don't want to overdo it! I'd better stick the other Future Quest issues further down in the stack so I don't overdose on sentimentality.

Ranking: +1. (Note this is a +1 with a period! That's not quite as good as a +1 with an exclamation point!)

Future Quest #1

How dare Jeff Parker pre-sign my copy of Future Quest without providing a certificate of authentication!

The Review or Whatever!
The Herculoids were one of my favorite cartoons as a child so I chose this cover. But if Blue Falcon and Dynomutt had been one of the choices, I would have picked up that issue. By the way, I hope Jeff Parker doesn't forget about Blue Falcon and Dynomutt! I'd rather see them than that little racist Jonny Quest, his imperialist father, and that bug-eyed dog!

I never actually watched much Jonny Quest so I'm probably projecting!

This comic book is the Laff-A-Lympics of Hanna Barbera's space and adventure cartoons. Unless Yogi's Great Space Race was that! No, that was just goofy characters from different cartoons in space. This is all the cool characters that weren't played goofy at all joining together to defeat Omnikron! Although Omnikron is kind of defeated in the opening scene, so it's really the characters coming together to defeat Dr. Zin of F.E.A.R. who is collecting pieces of Omnikron as they appear on Earth. To defeat this intergalactic menace, it's going to take the combined talents of Space Ghost, the Herculoids, Birdman, Race Bannon, and a couple of kids and their dog!

I was hoping to enjoy it more than I did but I think I'm of the generation where the only way I can enjoy the nostalgia of these characters is if they're presented in a modern cynical reworking of their personas! While reading this, I just kept thinking, "I should watch The Venture Bros. or Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law or Space Ghost Coast to Coast!" And now I'm just wondering why The Herculoids didn't get a re-imagining too! I don't think I'll be sticking with this one. I hope Wacky Raceland is more exciting!