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.

Batman and Robin and Howard (Family Comic Friday)

Being born and raised as a member of the League of Assassins has been a real setback to Damian Wayne when it comes to crime-fighting. He lacks the human element needed to distinguish a car burglar from a family who accidentally locked their keys inside their car. Damian is also just too competitive; not just with others but himself as well. Thanks to his mother Talia and grandpa R'as Al Ghul, 2nd place is considered 1st loser.

To get a better grasp on social graces, Bruce Wayne benches Damian and enrolls his son into a new school, Metro Gotham Academy. The BMOC at Metro is Howard. He's the smartest kid in class. The best player on the school soccer team. And he's beloved by students and teachers alike. But with the appearance of Damian Wayne on campus, Howard's favored student status is in serious jeopardy.

Meanwhile, Batman has gone missing. The soccer teams of all the local schools, except for Damian's old school and Metro, have been vandalized. On the trail of seemingly the Joker, Riddler or even Poison Ivy, Batman finds himself stuck in his most unbreakable prison ever- the utility closet of a middle school gymnasium! 

With Batman lost, Damian is anxious to find his dad. But he can't do it alone. And Alfred is refusing to let Damian go out patrolling in costume alone. Can Damian reveal to his arch-rival Howard in hopes of finding Batman and ending a soccer themed crime wave? 

This was another DC Kids graphic novel that I've been looking forward to for quite some time. And thanks to my local library, I was able to finally get my hands on it. Written and illustrated by Family Comic Family Jeffrey Brown (Star Wars: Jedi Academy), this was a fun read. I thought Damian was portrayed spot-on as he's been in the comics. Only maybe a little less arrogantly. This is a kids book, ya know.

I liked the new character of Howard and his school. I liked how one of the students are portrayed as disabled and yet the book does make a big, patronizing deal about it. It just was. Like how those with disabilities want to be treated: as a part of the group.

What I wasn't a fan of was how Brown portrays Batman. If you haven't figured things out, this Batman is kinda a buffoon. Having the Caped Crusader be aloof, like an out of touch dad is fine for its comedic effect. But having Batman be so dumb he can't break out of a middle school locker room just isn't Batman.

A great read that was goofy. Just some parts were better than others. And be sure to read through very end of the book for a special double-page secret scene!

I'd be okay with a sequel or two, regardless of how goofy the Dark Knight was in this book!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

1977: A Madman Turns 40: 2017- Day 22

   Upon my research for my year-long project of A Madman Turns 40, I'm learning that not every day is going to commemorate some major across-the-board cultural event that changes not just individual lives but those of entire communities. For example, tomorrow's article chronicles something huge. But that's for tomorrow. I need something to discuss today.
   
   Looking around the internet I found some really interesting tidbits that involved things that I have a particular interest in but weren't exactly watershed moments in their field. Some were cool, some odd, others tragic. All-in-all, these are great factoids but weren't things that I can really develop an entire article around.

     Let's look at a few: 

Another concert I wish I could have gone to!
ELO was in Texas!!!

• 40 years ago today some really awesome bands had concerts that I wish that I could've attended. The Talking Heads played the Rathskeller in Boston. Kiss lit up the East Coast and Van Halen was cruising around the Central Plains.

• Tom 'The Greek' Kapatos, bodyguard to Irish mobster Mickey Spillane is gunned down by a hired hand by the Italian mafia. This murder is seen as one of the acts that begins the end of the Irish mob in New York City. One of my favorite books made into a film Wiseguy/ Goodfellas alludes to this war between the Irish and Italians towards the third act.

The Bandit's hat is not included in the sale of this Trans-Am.

• From the Weird Drivers file: on this date, a man purchases a brand new 1977 Pontiac Trans-Am from Emerson Pontiac in Pekin, IL. For the next year and a half, the man uses the car as his daily automobile, meticulously tracking the 20703 miles he puts on the car after every use. For the next 36 years, he uses the car sparingly having documented a total of 48,975 miles. The guy even has details of every person to have ever driven the car and reports that it was only driven in the rain a total of 5 times. In 2015, 38-years to the day he bought the car, the man sold it to Carlyle Motors in Texas. As of Wednesday, the car is still at Carlyle, where for the price of $79,000, this replica of the car driven by Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit can be yours. 

  

  Nakata is widely considered the greatest
  soccer player in Japanese history.

• I noticed that a lot of soccer players were born on this day. Most famous is the Japanese player, Hidetoshi Kakata. I played soccer in high school, all four years. I don't recall there being very many teammates sharing birthdays with one another. 
  

• Lastly, Soviet TV airs a propaganda film called 'Buyers of Souls." This anti-Semitic picture will lead to the KGB arresting and imprisoning several key Zionist leaders in the following days. All arrested were accused of being CIA spies and basically tried by a kangaroo court that refused the defendants right to attorneys, making the prisoners defend themselves. The KGB would later demand that all who defended themselves were not permitted by law to do so and their testimonies rendered inadmissible. Eventually, Israel in able to negotiate many of the accused extraditions to the Holy Land in exchange for captured Soviet spies.

      This last one really burns me up. I have such a heart for the Jewish people. In high school, I actually made it a goal to marry a Jewish person who was a Christian. People said I was crazy and never find one. Well, I did. My wife is half-Jewish and my 5 children, God rest their souls, are a quarter Jewish. So for me, when I see Jews attacked, I see it as an attack on my family. 

      

       It's just hard to believe that after so many years, this sort of thing still occurs. It happened during World War II and you'd think after the horrors of the holocaust, people would have learned. Yet in the year I was born and still now 40 years later, the Jewish people are still targets of hatred and bitterness. 

     
   So much for light and peppy... But that's history for you. No matter how funny or odd you might find something, like the guy obsessed over his Trans Am, there's a tragedy on the other side world. It's one reason why this Madman continues to promise for the next 343 days I won't gloss over the controversal just to defend my favorite year.

    Until tomorrow...

Doctor Who #5 (2011-2012)

 The Doctor, Amy, and Rory hope to make it to 1966 Wembley in order to catch England winning the World Cup. Well, they make it to Wembley but just not at the right time thanks to the trusty machinations of the TARDIS. The trio arrives in Wemble's Woods during medieval times only to find a tribe of Vikings poised to overtake the area and later conquer London and all of England. Oh, and the Viking's are going to take Amy and Lord Wemble's wife as brides.
 
   In true fashion of the Doctor, it's up to him to save the day. Only he's not going to do with with swords or shields or even his sonic screwdriver. Instead, he's going to challenge the Vikings to a little game of football with Rory as goalie. Just don't tell the opposing team that Rory sucks as goalkeeper.

   Another great Doctor Who offering by IDW Publishing. The art is amazing and the plotting is fantastic. I've now read through 2 single-issue tales and a multi-issue affair and I must say I like them all equally. I hope IDW continued to mix it up like this as the format works very well.

    I really love the football variant cover B, too!

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.