Looney Tunes #279 (Family Comic Friday)

With just a week until the beginning of the 2024 Oylmpics, I've discovered another major franchise is getting into the spirit of things. In the latest issue of DC's Looney Tunes (which dropped just last Wednesday), Bugs Bunny hosts The Looney Games. Everyone from Michigan J. Frog to Taz, Lola Bunny to Foghorn Leghorn is completing in hopes of winning a medal in the games. Of course, the ever too over-confident Daffy Duck thinks he's going to sweep all the categories. But when Bugs fires the starting gun for the first race, causing Daffy to panic that duck hunting season has begun early this year, you know things are in trouble for the wisecracking mallard. 

This summer has also seen several major soccer championships taking place all over the globe. So it's only fitting that the back-up feature involves the world's most popular sport. Bugs answers an ad for a soccer tournament, which instead turns out to be a trap for some of the Looney Tunes' most dastardly characters to scare up some victims for a host of mad experiments. It looks like Bugs' goose is cooked. That is until he demands his foes challenge him in a match or- horror of horrors- the rascally rabbit will get his lawyers involved! 

Featuring Witch Hazel, Gossamer and a character I didn't know even existed, the Looney Tunes version of Dracula: Count Bloodcount! You know Bugs will play dirty against this squad of villains and we all love it!

It's rare when I think that the second story is better than the cover feature. Yet, that's how I felt with this issue and the soccer story was a reprint from like 10 years ago! I felt that the Olympic themed story was just too jammed packed. Derek Fridolfs along with Robert Pope crafted some great gags. But would it have been a bad thing to have let these two take over the whole issue with the Looney Games story? Less is not always more when it's a rapid fire of joke-joke-gag-joke-pun!

Plus, poor Wile E. Coyote! There's a scene where he's given a baton in the relay race and right before he's sent to claim victory, an anvil smashes him flat. In typical fashion, he lifts a placard that bemoans 'Why can't I win?' That just broke my heart. Why can't the Coyote win a race? He's not trying to eat anyone. I demand justice! I want a rematch!

For the parents out there, this issue has the typical amount of violence using dynamite, bear traps and mallets. Nobody stays hurt. But of course, some of the youngest of readers might not understand that sort of misadventure has long-term consequences of injury. If Looney Tunes is something you allow the little ones in your life to watch on TV, then there's nothing offensive here in this comic. As usual, it's up to the level of maturity in the readers as to whether your family can enjoy this sports themed comic this year or will have to wait until the Olympics of 2028 for a read!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Looney Tunes #272

A while back when I reviewed an all-Stupor Duck issue of Looney Tunes, I closed my post asking DC for an all-Duck Dodgers issue. Well, 2 out of 3 isn't bad!

Derek Fridolfs penned an all-new Duck Dodgers epic with the semi-heroic mallard being sent on a mission to the future to find a rare element. However, the time machine has a glitch and instead of sending Dodgers to the future, it sends him to medieval times. As Duck Dodgers keeps tinkering with the faulty time machine, our hero risks changing the time line; thus potentially preventing the existence of Earth's defense forces from alien invaders!

The reprint story at the end of the book, also by Fridolfs, sees Duck Dodger's sidekick, the Eager Young Space Cadet, getting promoted. Now he's Duck Dodger's superior! Of course, our 24 and 1/2th Century hero is NOT happy about this!

Sandwiched between the two Duck Dodgers stories is a classic Looney Tunes parody of Star Trek. From 1994, this Ivan Cohen story is a riff on everyone's favorite Star Trek movie, The Wraith of Khan! Seeing your favorite Looney Tunes characters dressed in the maroon uniforms was great and I loved the flashback scene of characters in those TOS tunics. 

Okay, so we didn't get 3 stories starring Duck Dodgers. Instead, we got an all-space parody issue and I am completely okay with that! That Star Trek send-up was hilarious! I guess if DC is paying any attention to my blog, I'm going to make another wish. I want an over-sized 80 or 100 page special of nothing but all-Christmas themed Looney Tunes stories (No reprints, if possible!) If DC isn't reading my Madman rants, then I guess I can dream, right?

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Looney Tunes #262

Daffy Duck is the star of this issue. More importantly, the focus is on Daffy's amazing superhero character Stupor Duck! Starring in a trio of stories!

Based on a 1956 Looney Tunes short of the same name, Stupor Duck is a parody of Superman, The Man of Steel. By day, Stupor Duck is Cluck Trent, a mild mannered reporter for a Large Metropolitan Newspaper, whose nose for news is questionable at best. In fact, that spotty track record is what kicks off our 3-story tribute to the Mallard of Steel.

In an all-new story by Derek Fridolfs, Cluck Trent finds himself out of a job. With the paper going digital due to a lack of sales, the managing editor sends Trent packing. With no employment, this means more time to be Stupor Duck. Only, the superhero makes a gigantic mess of everything along the way. 

The second adventure is a reprint story in which Stupor Duck attempts to help a citizen, played by Porky Pig, with the washing machine that took his money! Reprint story #2 (story #3 overall) is a tribute to legendary DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz who firmly believed that putting monkeys on the cover of his books resulted in massive sales. Here, Stupor Duck takes on a giant gorilla that is terrorizing the fair city. 

The two reprint adventures told more cohesive stories. The first adventure is an awful lot like that 1956 cartoon in which we see more of an array of super-heroic feats that end in hysterically bad ways. Like for instance, at one point, Stupor Duck comes across some bank robbers. But instead of seeing them as bad guys, the hero thinks the criminals are bank patrons who are having trouble accessing their funds. In the end, Stupor Duck helps the crooks rob the bank, feeling like he's a hero who just helped out a bunch of stand-up townsfolk. Add about 3-4 mishaps and Cluck Trent's job search has been all but forgotten while the city reels from the destructive good intentions of Stupor Duck!

I like the Looney Tunes comic book very much. It captures the spirit of the original cartoons very well. Knowing that this was an all-Stupor Duck issue is why I wanted it. This issue did not disappoint. There's just so much going on in that first story. I feel like maybe 10% of the antics of Stupor Duck could have been trimmed back in order to circle around back to a closing gag that would have again featured Cluck Trent's job search woes. I think that would have made for a better ending than the one we get. But the two reprint stories were masterpieces and I understand why DC decided to reissue them in this tribute to Stupor Duck. 

Now, could we get an all-Duck Dodgers issue as well?

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The Joker/Daffy Duck Special #1

The Joker/Daffy Duck Special rounds out my completion of DC/Looney Tunes Wave 2. This one was the one I least expected to enjoy (though I really loved the variant cover and used it as my FB avatar for a while.) Yet, I was for the most part pleasantly surprised.

The art was probably my least favorite aspect of this special. Norm Rapmund and Brett Booth's artwork was quite frenzied and for a Joker adventure, that works very well. but Daffy looks freaky. I know that ducks have these little parts on their bill that are referred to as teeth. Yet, seeing Daffy with a full mouth full of pearly whites is just unsettling.

The story itself was very well written. Daffy treks to Gotham City to see why the Acme Company hasn't filled his latest order of gags. Turns out that Acme has been closed for years and is now the hideout of the Joker!

Normally the Clown Prince of Crime would just off anyone who trespasses on his turf. But Daffy manages to talk his way into becoming the villain's new capo. It's merely a ruse to buy himself some time to escape. but Daffy actually turns out to be pretty good at his job.

I didn't like the ending. I didn't really think it was all that fair towards poor Daffy. But overall, the opening story was entertaining.

I wish I could tell you about the back-up feature. But it was really forgettable. Done in the Looney Tunes style, I cannot for the life of me remember if the Joker or Daffy are even in this Joey Cavaleri penned tale.

Wait a minute!!! I seem to recall Daffy posing as a psychologist at Arkham and he's analyzing the Joker... Still, it's a little cloudy. But if it's not that memorable, it must not have been all that great.

Wow. what a way to end a special. This one's going to be tough to rate. Unfortunately, the back-up tale is going to weigh this book down. But I still recommend this to fans of DC and Merry Melodies because the first story was pretty decent for the most part.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.