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!)

Batman Loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #6

I can't fucking stand how the "J" in "ninja" is all wonky!

The Review!
If you want an insincere, biased, simply going through the paces of complimenting each artist on the book review that I can't believe was actually referencing the comic book I just read (which was this one! Issue #6 of the Batman/TMNT crossover!), go read this review! If you want the kind of hilarious review that I'm known for ("hilarious review that I'm known for" is copyright me, 2016), you'll have to go to bed wanting. Because I couldn't bring myself to be interested enough in this final issue to even read it months ago when it came out. I simply dug it out of the stack now just to get the fucking thing over with. Here's the positive side of my review: if this were a terrible book, you'd be reading one of those hilarious reviews that I'm known for right now! But it's not terrible. It's simply boring. It's one big Batman brawl with a twist: his rogue's gallery are currently furry versions of their usual selves. The story hinges on whether or not the Ninja Turtles will save their own asses or risk them to save Batman's ass. That's a pretty weak hinge because we all know which way that door is swinging, right? I would have preferred it if the Turtles shrugged and left Batman to Shredder. But that isn't what the Turtles are about, cowabunga dude! They'd never leave another turtle flipped over on its back! They'd be all, "Aloha, little dude! Let me help you up! Pizza!" Then they'd kick Shredder's ass and the story would end. Just like this story finally ends with Shredder getting his ass kicked! I guess I was surprised that the Turtle with the red mask came out of the closet and declared his undying love for Batman. Don't ask me which turtle that is because the only one I recognize is Donatello with the purple and the stick. That's because he's the one I always used to play on the arcade machine.

If you're the biggest fan of the Turtles, you'll probably enjoy this entire series because you have to or else you won't be the biggest fan of the turtles anymore. If you aren't the biggest fan but you're a pretty big fan, you'll still probably have to enjoy this series or else the gnawing doubt that maybe it was a mistake to love the turtles for so much of your life will eat away at you until you spiral into a depression knowing that you've wasted so much of your life on something so fucking stupid. If you hate the turtles, you might like this series too because what the fuck do I know? Maybe you're a sadist or a Batman fan or a furry looking to jerk off to new furry porn. I mean, Harley looks like an opossum or some shit in this. Does that sound sexy? Yeah? Well, happy jerking, perv!

The Flintstones #3

Is Wilma taking some kind of feminist stand? Is she throwing away the pubic trimming bird?

The Commentary!
• I just found out that Garth Ennis is going to do a Dastardly and Muttley comic book and I can't be happier. When Dick Dastardly isn't trying to cheat everybody out of everything for his own nefarious purposes, I imagine he drinks alone with Muttley and becomes the most maudlin sad sack in the history of people who drink. Garth Ennis is just the person to humanize Dick Dastardly while still keeping him a right, unlikable bastard! But likable in his unlikableness, you know?! At least to me! I love that guy!

• The Bedrock Middle School's mascots are the "fighting tree people." Oh boy. I can't wait until Pebbles starts raising a stink about that! And about how they all celebrate and have a big feast on Forest Burning Day! And how Christopher Colombrock didn't actually discover Bedrock at all because how can you discover some place that was full of trees with people living in the trees?!

• Bedrock Middle School has taken a trip to the Planetarium to learn about rocks in the sky.

Look, Mark Russell. If you're going to keep taking cheap shots at illogical religious thinking, I'm going to keep reading your comic book.

• I still love Steve Pugh's character designs. Just looking at Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, I feel like I understand, essentially, who they are. Fucking great work.

• Another aspect of this book I like but probably haven't mentioned is how, like in the cartoon, the animals can speak but the humans don't realize it. I mean, all the animals except Dino and Hoppy, probably.

• Today at the planetarium, a chimp named Sergeant Grumbles is going to be launched into space! Rocket science one hundred thousand years ago was less rocket science and more flinging spitballs. Also it was fictional. If any rockets were being launched one hundred thousand years ago, they weren't being launched from Earth.

• Some aliens detect the death of a chimp being catapulted across the land so they decide to investigate. None of them look like The Great Gazoo, so The Great Gazoo must a shared hallucination between Barney and Fred brought on by the mold growing in their Water Buffalo hats. The aliens land, realize Earth one hundred thousand years ago sucked, and continue on their way. Maybe Gazoo was a stowaway who gets trapped on Earth and now he's going to live in Fred's attic.

• The possibility of being colonized by the aliens has Fred, Barney, and their old vet buddy reminiscing about the days when they were heroes. It was a span of two weeks after they burned out the Tree People and took their land. One of their army buddies, Joe, is now thinking about killing himself. It's pretty funny because he's using one of those huge ram's horn phone receivers and he's just been put on hold! Ha ha! He might kill himself while on hold!

• The aliens catalog Earth on Galactapedia where it catches the interest of some other aliens who decide to visit. These aliens have one of those sexy lady mud flap chrome doohickeys on their spacecraft so they must be classy dudes.

I've met a few men and women in my life who would consider this classy.

• Classy is one of those adjectives that mean absolutely nothing. I mean, it means something in that it has a meaning: stylish and sophisticated! But anybody who calls themselves classy usually isn't. And anybody who calls anybody else not classy, definitely isn't classy. The only fucking people who argue about whether or not someone is classy are people who aren't classy! If you're actually classy, you don't think of yourself as such and would never get in an argument with somebody about your classy status! I hope I never think or hear the word "classy" ever again after writing this bullet point!

• From the way Fred has used "yabba-dabba-do" so far, I'm guessing it means "Fuck me."

• The spring break aliens begin pranking the citizens of Bedrock by disintegrating them. Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm decide to go hide out at the planetarium until the aliens get bored and head home. Fred decides he needs to get the war buddies together to battle back the alien menace. And Betty still has not appeared in her bikini. I'd take a shot of her in her underwear as well.

• Bamm-Bamm wants to fight back but Pebbles has a better idea: message their parents using the pterodactellite dish. I guess you kick it in the nards a bunch and it screeches out a message into the sky. The message is magnified by the cone around its neck. The message is modified by how often and how hard you kick the testicles.

• Suicidal Joe is killed in the uprising so that ties up that sticky plot end nicely. Now nobody has to think about the horrible life of vets of foreign wars full of desperate isolation, loneliness, and depression! Now he can just be remembered as a hero!

I can see why they went with the Grumbles statue. A statue of Joe would be depressing. But who can't smile at the sight of a chimp?!

The Review!
I'm learning so many lessons from this comic book! So far I've learned that nobody appreciates art! And I've also learned that no company appreciates their employees! Also nobody appreciates religion. And nobody appreciates the things they should appreciate but instead appreciate crap. And nobody appreciates war heroes for their service in killing innocents (since that's, apparently, why freedom isn't free! The cost is other people's lives). Hmm, are those really lessons? Or are those just the cynical worldview of a bitter, resentful comic book writer? I don't know but they make sense to me!

Ranking: +2!

The Flintstones #2

The Commentary!
• Who would have thought that the Hanna-Barbera comic books would be the cutting edge comic book commenting on our modern times? The Young Animal line is going to have to really step up their game if it wants to be considered the thinking person's comic book line. Wacky Raceland is over there commenting on the important aspects in our journey through life. The Flintstones are commenting on the ridiculousness of our modern way of living and how we believe much of that idiocy is just the way things are, shrugging off any belief we can change it and just struggling through the role others have given us. Scooby Apocalypse is commenting on how fighting for survival at the end of the world in a short skirt doesn't provide as many on-panel upskirt shots as a reader might expect. And Future Quest is commenting on how wrong it is for a boy and his boy-servant to love a dog so intimately. I think. I've only read one issue of that months ago, so I might not have a clear grasp on what is going on.

• I suppose the Hanna-Barbera comics are aimed at the older generations who watched them in their youth and who are now having midlife crises which the questions being raised in the comic books are only intensifying. Jerks. But the Young Animal imprint will probably be aimed at a much younger generation who still think they're immortal and think the height of humor is when somebody responds to something totally serious with "deez nuts!"

• This issue begins with Fred discovering that his neighbors, the Rubbles, are Promists. That's the opposite of Morpists! Unless Stsiprom is the opposite of Morpists? No, no! You're distracting me with pedantic puzzles, brain. Just let me get to my point about Barney and Betty having a television in their rock house that's apparently wired with rock wires! I don't think they're the caveman equivalent of Satanists because they have a magic television that somehow works without a bunch of bird slaves flying about and making pictures with their beaks in slate at 24 slate pictures per second! I mean he must be a Satanist due to his connections. How did Barney and Betty get their hands on a flat screen, wall-mounted television set in time for the first ever television broadcast?! I think Barney belongs to a more Masonic Lodge than the Water Buffaloes!

Oh! They've got an original Wilma hanging in on the wall!

• Mark Russell had better not be gearing up to make some kind of anti-television point! That's worse than insulting my mom! Don't fucking attack the person and/or object who raised me!

• The television explains how there is "crap" to buy and that everybody is buying that "crap". Well, if that's as tough on television as Russell is going to get--it's a tool to get people to buy useless garbage--I can deal with it! I mean, he also sort of takes a shot at news programs and the media but I do that every chance I get, so I'm all aboard on that one. I'm just glad he didn't denigrate the art of television! Unless Steve Pugh did that by drawing the scene with Wilma's art off to the side while everybody was fixated on the television. I think that was a statement of some kind!

• I don't like having to figure out what things mean. I just like pointing at stuff and saying, "I saw that! Did you see that? Totally saw that. Means something, probably."

• I'm really enjoying Steve Pugh's different people and their facial expressions. He's drawing a lot of characters in this comic book and they all pop with their own little mini-personalities.

• Due to the power of advertising, Fred takes Wilma and Pebbles to the Bedrock Mall to buy some crap. And probably a television of his own so he can see more violent images reported as news!

I want one of these! I wonder if they have any Raccoon Garbage Disposals? Or Kitten Cuisinarts?

• Apparently "Wammath Bammath Thank You Mammoth" is where people buy their general hose devices for washing cars and getting water to the dishwasher because Wilma buys a dishwasher at the mall and it's an octopus. Basically the Flintstones need to hire a full time appliance to feed and care for all of the other appliances. Would that be a monkey? Could a monkey do all of that?

• After the television watching and the shopping and the yard work, the Flintstones go to church. See? Church is just another useless activity in an endless list of activities and chores to pass the time until death.

• The church is called The First Church of Animism and the Morp they all worship is a bird. Hmm. Is that why so many appliances are birds? Because they're Morp's gift to his people? But Morp is a special bird! It's the bird that led them to warmer lands in colder season! It's the bird that led them to water! It's the bird that...well, that's actually all Morp did for them. Two things! Although, that's two more things than God ever did for anybody!

• Morp has been turned into a turntable so now Morp's voice is simply the voice of anybody who knows how to record to vinyl. I guess that's the end of that religion!

• With the sudden influx in Joneses to keep up with, Fred finds himself in a prehistoric pickle. That's clever because it does that thing where the two words begin with the same letter. You know? I don't want to say the word because it might be offensive to people who mishear things. Oh, but I guess I can type it! Alliteration! I just don't want people hearing me say that and thinking I said, "A Little Asian."

Uh-oh! The first Multi-level Marketing scheme!

• While Fred starts his new sitcom moonlighting job, the First Church of Animism reforms because Morp's debut album wasn't too popular.

Ha! Nice dig at the Unitarians!

• After church, Fred goes to return a garbage disposal. Probably because it isn't a raccoon! It's a stupid lizard thing! He also mentions that he needs food for the appliances. See? He needs an appliance to do that job for him.

• While at the Bone Despot, Wilma discovers Peaches is just a vacuum cleaner. This is another one of those statements! I just want everybody to know that I'm not saying this! This is absolutely what this comic book has just declared: God sucks.

• Due to every single animal the Church of Animism can think of to be their god already being used as a piece of crap to improve the lives of the people of Bedrock, they decide to go with the invisible God who can't be seen or heard or easily argued out of existence. It really is difficult to win an argument where somebody says, "Prove my God doesn't exist!" And then you say, "Look around you? Do you see your God? Doesn't exist!" And then they say, "Just because you can't see God or hear God or feel God or touch God or smell God or see any actual non-made-up evidence that God doesn't exist, doesn't mean that God doesn't exist!" Then you say, "Well then anything I can think of exists and you can't prove me wrong!" Then the other person says, "Stop being ridiculous." And then you lose!

• Fred is having difficulty selling his vitamins door-to-door. They're all the difficulties you would expect him to have in a sitcom, like interrupting people at dinner and being chased off of the property by Tyrannosaurs. But Barney is doing well because he's using his absurdly strong child to lie to his customers about the vitamins capabilities.

• Fred learns another lesson from Wilma at the end of this issue because she knows lots of happy bullshit that makes life sound better than it actually is. This time, she points out that people don't need things. What people desperately need is love and recognition and attention and compliments from other people. So get rid of all the stuff and just find some poor sap who desperately needs you more than you actually need them. That'll make you feel better! Unless it just makes you feel guilty that you don't seem to love them anywhere close to how much they love you. I guess you'll just have to figure out what makes you the least miserable!

• While returning a bunch of appliances, Fred picks up Dino because Dino doesn't do shit. I mean, Dino doesn't have a use for the household! What Dino does provide is a never-ending source of love and affection at a cost of practically zero! You don't even have to feel guilty about not really loving your dinosaur dog that much because it doesn't give a fuck. It just loves loving you!

The Review!
I think I already reviewed this in the opening bullet point. It's a fun comic book and I like the way it's put together in short little scenes that all end with a joke or a commentary on something. And then it's all tied up like a shitty television sitcom where Fred learns a lesson from his loving mate! Actually, I could do without the lesson. I'm not reading The Flintstones for insight! I'm reading them to see Betty in a bikini! When is that going to happen?!

Ranking: +3!

The Flintstones #1

See, everybody? I'm fucking reading it! Now lay off me!

The Commentary!
• At first I wasn't planning on reading The Flintstones because I don't have any real fondness for the old cartoon. But my comic book shop put it in my pull box anyway, so I picked it up. I'm glad they did because when I found it was written by Mark Russell, the writer of Prez, I was absolutely excited to read it. If this is a fraction as good as Prez was then it'll still be better than most comic books on the shelves.

• Snippets of songs I heard on this show have been with me since my childhood. Not a month goes by that I don't sing one or two (or three!) of the various songs stuck in my head because of this show. First there is the one that Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm sing: "Let the sun shine in! Meet it with a grin. Open up your heart and let the sun shine in!" Then there's the song by the fab group, The Way Outs! "Way out! WAY OUT! That's where the fun is! WAY OUT!" And lastly, the jingle of some prehistoric burger joint: "Here I come on the run with a burger on a bun singing blah blah blah blah blah! Something about lettuce you'll upset us something pickle or some other thing." Anyway, I still often sing that whole "Here I come on the run with a burger on a bun!" part.

• One other way music and The Flintstones was a part of my life was the theme song. At a way too young age, my mom used to let me watch slasher and paranormal horror movies like The Sentinel and The Exorcist and Friday the 13th. When I would lay down to go to sleep and feel terrified, I would simply picture Fred and Wilma in their car driving down an endless road as I sang the theme song to myself until I passed out from exhaustion.

• One other thing I remember about the cartoon. Barney was a fucking pervert! I'm fairly certain there's an episode where he's reluctant to be the back half of a dinosaur costume because he's worried Dino might get some funny ideas. I think there's another moment that became popular on the Internet where Barney jokes about having two heads. Which is a dick joke, of course.

• This issue is called "A Clean Slate". I guess it's about Mr. Slate taking a bath?

• As an aside, for those of you annoyed that I often don't put my punctuation inside the closing quotes, I suggest looking up why Americans and British differ on the topic. I might be American but I choose to do the logical thing and not the traditional way which only came about due to the printing process. Last I checked, the Internet isn't run like a printing press.

• The comic book takes place in the town of Bedrock one hundred thousand years ago!

Page Two and Russell and Pugh had me at a club called "Homo Erectus".

• I'm guessing "Wammoth Bammoth Thank You Mammoth" is where cavemen go to buy their dishwashers and not a brothel.

• My other favorite place in Bedrock? Trey's Bird Slavery Emporium.

• In Bedrock, Homo Sapiens run it all! But recently, Mr. Slate has hired some Neanderthals because they work cheap and illegal. You can't run a profitable quarry without illegals who are also much stronger and not as smart as the citizens of the city! Fred calls Wilma on his Shellphone to tell her he'll be late because he's got to take the new guys to a boxing match. She reminds Fred that he and Barney have some support group for veterans or something down at the lodge.

• Wilma is into cave painting on canvas.

• Morp is apparently their God.

• Barney calls the Neanderthals "cavemen" when Fred comes to pick him up. Now I feel like a jerk referring to the regular citizens of Bedrock as cavemen! I'm so insensitive! I think?

• After the support group, Fred, Barney and the cavemen finally head out to watch the fights.

Apparently every current fighter on the circuit is undefeated.

• So, anyway, Fred teaches the Neanderthals how they have to work a sucky job and hope to move up to another sucky job to pay for all the other sucky crap that encompasses life until they deflate like a pig balloon and are no use to anybody anymore. Except maybe as slave bird feed. But at least Wilma is having a nice life! Her paintings have been accepted in an exhibition at the Bedrock Museum! That's probably just a cave.

• Fred learns that the only people who profit from war are financiers and corporations. He learns this at Mr. Slate's Hot Tub Party where guests are encouraged to bring their own lotion. Ew. I don't want to know any more about it.

I'm with Wilma.

• One of the Neanderthals winds up falling through the ice at Mr. Slate's party while trying to kill a mammoth for Mr. Slate to barbecue. After that, the other Neanderthals decide they've had enough of civilization and bingo bongo bungle head back into the jungle.

• Fred doesn't get the foreman job because he failed to get Mr. Slate cheap labor. So he and Wilma go home leaving Mr. Slate alone with his dessert tortoise.

I only scanned this picture so I could send it to the Non-Certified Spouse. She was terrified of giant sloths as a child because she saw them in a book on prehistoric animals.

• Later at the art exhibit, Wilma's art is skewered by the critics. I totally agree with them: her hand prints are childish but lack the whimsy which would bring a spark of life and joy to the canvas. Critics are awesome!

• Wilma explains to Fred what her art means to her. Well, that's all well and good but since when did what the artist believed matter? Her handprints are still boring crap!

The Review!
How am I supposed to give an intellectual critique of this comic book when Mark Russell made sure to point out that critics are assholes? Fucking dick! I don't go to his job and draw pictures of writers masturbating constantly over their own material before he can even write the material which would make him want to masturbate! Or something. I mean, obviously if I have a criticism with this comic book, it just proves I'm a stupid artwad critic! So I'm not going to offer a criticism of this comic book even though it would have been favorable!

Ranking: +3! Oh yeah! I forgot to give rankings to the Wacky Raceland comic books! I suppose they can have a +1 between them!

Wacky Raceland #3

I really want to feel joyous thanks to the Muttley sticker but my mind is screaming because of the fucked up dice.

The Facts!
• Today's race takes place in Big Sur! I put the exclamation point on there because anybody who was ever in The Sierra Club in High School in California probably first got fingered there. Apparently the place is now called Poseidon's Toilet. I assume that's because fingering isn't the only "first" that happens there anymore.

• If there isn't an urban dictionary entry for "Poseidon's Toilet," just imagine it's when somebody pees in your asshole as you're receiving oral sex.

• Apparently Peter Perfect is a God-fearing man. What a puss.

Dick didn't mock God at all! He was mocking victims of sexual abuse! Get it right, Peter!

• Luke of the Arkansas Chuggabug declares God is dead while Pat Pending points out that the search for a supreme being has been mankind's biggest folly. Now, I don't know about all that! I'm sure believing in something greater helped people until they didn't need the crutch of religion anymore. Sure, some people still need it. And that would be fine if they kept it as their own business. But when somebody sees you walking around crutch-free and having a good old time, I really wish they would stop insisting that life would be easier if I got some crutches too.

• Peter answers Pat by pointing out that science doesn't answer everything. No, it doesn't. YET! But you can't just decide that anything you can make up in your imagination is as good an answer as anything else! Science continues to paint the floor of the universe with explanations while God is desperately trapped in an ever-decreasing corner. He's just not needed as an explanation. For anything!

• The mountain the Racers are driving across collapses into a deep body of water which knocks Penelope Pitstop into a memory of her youth. It's mostly composed of crayons.

• Penelope's memories might be a little wonky from the near drowning. Or else she actually had a Cyclops for a step-father. She seems to worship Zeus, so I guess it's possible! Anyway, her backstory was one of abuse so you'd think she would have been more offended by Dick's comment than Peter was. But why would she get offended at Dick Dastardly?! He's the hero of this story!

• One of the rules of the race is that the Racers can't let other Racers die. That seems like a ridiculous rule. I guess this race isn't about finding a winner to send to a fabled Utopia after all. The Announcer must need them to save what's left of the world and the only way to do that is to forge them into a strong team who can depend on each other.

• I still wish they could kill each other. I guess that would make things too easy.

• Sawtooth has a metal chastity belt and a metal mouth gag. What the fuck is up with that?! I guess he's Rufus's sexual subservient.

See? A deviant! Rufus and Sawtooth are definitely fucking. Violently.

• Penelope and Dick bond over slaughtering mutant crabs away from the rest of the Racers. Penelope even admits that Dick makes a lot of sense. Of course he does! He's the most intelligent Racer in the group! He also hates everybody and knows life is a piece of shit that simply wears you down until you're too tired to argue with it anymore and you die listlessly! That whole raging against the dying of the light? Impossible! Life has almost assuredly crushed the spirit from you long before you're gasping your final breaths.

• Dick also probably reviews comic books.

• The plant monster controls Red Max like a puppet in the way you're probably imagining a puppet is puppeted. He says to Rufus, "I don't know what you see in this, Rufus." Is the only point of Red Max to insult all of the characters in ways that allow the reader to discover their gender and sexuality?! He's quite the important character then!

• Dick and Penelope are almost eaten by a monstrosity of a Leviathan. It's not a natural sea monster though! It has the logo of some gene-splicing company: a hatchet chopping a double helix in half. Is the company the bad guy The Announcer is training the Racers to battle? Or is the company just one of The Announcer's many assets to make the Racer's life more difficult?

• I hope the ultimate enemies are aliens.

• The issue ends without revealing who wins the race. It was probably Pat Pending! But I think this issue is the one that's saying, "Look! It doesn't matter who wins each race because the race is beside the point! The point is what the Racers learn about themselves and each other during each race! Sheesh! Pay attention!"

• I'm just going to mark down that Pat Pending won! So that's one for Penelope, one for Dick, and one for Pat! Go Dick!

My Opinions!
I wish the art in this comic book were a little bit clearer. I get that it's gritty and post-apocalyptic but sometimes I actually want to be able to understand what I'm looking at without having to cross my eyes and stare through the page until everything comes into focus. As for the writing, I have a feeling it will get better as Ken Pontac gets more comfortable with the world he's building. I do like that each issue has been one individual race, like the episodes of the cartoons. I also like that the race doesn't actually matter. It's just a metaphor for life, and the Racers a metaphor for those we're closest to on our journey through it. Getting to the finish line ahead of the rest isn't the point. It's how you treat the others on the journey, and it's about discovering the things you're capable of, and it's about redeeming the things you eventually become wise enough to realize need redeeming. This book has a lot of potential, I think. Dick Dastardly has always been my favorite Racer and he continues to be in this comic book. My second favorite from the cartoon? Rufus and Sawtooth! And, hey! Guess what? I think they're becoming my second favorite here too! They just need more on-panel time!

Wacky Raceland #2

If at all possible, I will always choose a cover with Dick Dastardly. Unless one of the covers eventually shows the Turbo Terrific and the Compact Pussycat fucking.

The Facts!
• It's sometimes hard to tell how filthy-minded people from the past actually were. In a general sense, I believe the amount of cynicism among the general populace wasn't as great while the amount of naiveté was greater. So when I look back at the Wacky Races cartoon, I have to wonder if the artist who designed the Turbo Terrific and the Compact Pussycat knew he was making a sexually explicit visual comment on the Peter and Penelope? I would have to think he knew but owing to that greater level of naiveté, it was something that could easily make it onto a kid's cartoon. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here are the two cars:

A head-on collision between these two cars would be x-rated.

• The current race is in San Francisco. That probably means they'll encounter a gay earthquake who is tripping balls.

• Dick Dastardly drives by a building that allows him to reminisce about his life before the apocalypse. He can't do it while driving though so he stops and gets out of the car, ignoring the radiation and cannibal mutants. Maybe he left some devious trap supplies in the building and he needs them to make sure the Anthill Mob wind up with Hepatitis C. Oh, and also lose the race, of course!

• Apparently Dick Dastardly was a famous concert pianist before the world went to shit. And also not-so-apparently and maybe I'm interpreting the story wrong, but his piano playing causes plagues. Also maybe he plays the violin. And maybe the plagues were just happening. And maybe...well, anyway, some horrible cataclysm hits San Francisco and Dick, being inside the secure vault with the Stradivarius he was showing his wife and child, survives. But his wife and child were locked out of the vault. By Dick. So, you know, he watched them die. So I guess that's supposed to make him a bad guy? I think it makes him a survivor!

• Meanwhile, the rest of the racers are being attacked by cannibals and nanites and underground comic book artists. It's not the most exciting story. Just a bunch of scenes with how each of the different racers tries to avoid the nanites. Pat Pending gets his Convert-a-Car to convert. The Gruesome Twosome gruesomely drag some cannibals behind the Creepy Coupe to distract the nanites. The Red Max continues to say as many transphobic things as he can think of to Sergeant Blast. And Peter Perfect decides to blast an EMP to disable all of the nanites. Of course, that kills all of their cars as well. If this were the cartoon, the Anthill Mob would all lift up the frame of the car and run across the finish line on their feet to win. But since this is a comic book and not a silly cartoon, I hope Dick Dastardly wins since his car is still operational, being that he was left way behind while he picks up the violin he left all those years ago for some reason. I mean, why didn't he take it with him the night his son and wife and everybody in San Francisco died?

• Oh, maybe he didn't want the violin after all. He just wanted to finish his concert and apologize to the audience for taking their money without giving them the performance they paid for.

I would prefer it if Muttley were sniggering.

• After Dick's family died that night, The Announcer came to him and turned his car into the sentient Mean Machine. The Announcer then promised Dick that if he could win the Wacky Races, she would be able to bring Dick's wife and son back to life. He agrees although he forgets to ask The Announcer if they could be brought to life with just a little bit of their memories cut off at the end of their previous lives. Because, I mean, how happy are they going to be to see him when their last memories are of him locking them out of his safe room to watch them die in a firestorm?

• Back to the others, it seems the EMP killed the cars but not the nanites. They were able to bring themselves back online and now the racers are all racing on foot to the finish line as they try to outrun death.

• Dick passes by the other racers and refuses to blow his EMP to help them out. Why do they even ask him? They saw how that didn't work before! I think they're just trying to get him to be stuck in the same position. What awful, awful people all of the racers who aren't Dick Dastardly are!

• Dick does use his EMP but only after he wins the race. Good job, Dick Dastardly! I can't believe he won a race in only the second issue! Did Ken Pontac ever even watch the fucking cartoon?! Dick never wins!

• At the finish line, the Racers are beset upon by cannibals before they can beat Dick's ass for not saving their lives quickly enough. Fucking ungrateful bastards! Dick Dastardly is a hero and a race winner and a survivor! How dare they treat him so shabbily. I've never read a character that is more upstanding and inspiring as Dick Dastardly! My hero!

My Opinions!
Hopefully this comic book doesn't concentrate on just the more human of the racers. I think we've got a pretty good handle on who Dick and Peter and Penelope and Red Max and Sergeant Blast and Pat Pending are. I want more stories about the Gruesome Twosome and the Slagg Brothers and Rufus Roughcut's beaver friend, Sawtooth! What's going on with those guys?! We already saw what was up with Blubber Bear which was less interesting, I thought, than having Luke running around with a cowardly, anxiety-filled bear as his partner. Why couldn't he have a sentient bear in this book? Why isn't Muttley more human? Why can't a beaver be a co-driver?! This thing has sentient cars and an omnipotent announcer! I want this comic book to be weirder than it is and less based in sci-fi realities. I want sci-fi fantasies!