I always think I’ve got all the Ambush Bug
comics DC ever published - and it’s taken me years to get this far – but there
always seems to be more. I’ve got all the mini series and all of the one-offs, but I
keep stumbling across issues of Action Comics or Supergirl where the green fool
literally pops in and out, and I have to get them, because I always enjoy
Ambush Bug comics, just a little too much.
The most recent Ambush Bug finds were a
couple of issues of DC Comics Presents, including the Bug’s first appearance.
And even though these are undoubtedly clumsy and more than a little silly, and
even though these comics are now nearly 30 years old, they’re still pretty
bloody funny.
Ambush Bug would become synonymous with
insane metatextual fun, but that’s almost totally missing in his first
appearance in DCP #52. It a regular old 1982 DC comic, with an old and
tired pre-Crisis Superman smashing into the missed opportunities that were the
New Doom Patrol. It’s still Giffen’s creation, but with a script by good ol’
Paul Kupperberg, it’s missing that spark of the complete bonkers.
Here, Ambush Bug is a fairly goofy villain who
even straight-up murders someone, and Giffen’s art as stiflingly slick as it
ever got, (before he broke it all down again), but there is also a nice little joke involving the word
“Blooie!” and a surprise guest appearance by Judge Dredd (as a burst balloon),
so it’s not totally worthless. First appearances aren’t always magical.
The classic Bug team of Giffen, dialogue
man Robert Loren Fleming and inker Bob Oskner were in place for the issue, and
this last appearance with Supermen gave a good idea of the increasingly ludicrous
direction Ambush Bug was rolling in.
It features Superman and Ambush Bug
swapping minds, with the powerfully irresponsible Bug interfering with the
plans of Kobra, the terribly serious master villain (the straight men in Ambush
Bug stories were often the villains). It could be any typical DC plot from any
time in the past 70 years, but is given life by going straight for the funny
bone.
Serious superhero fans like serious
superhero stories, and frown upon any straight superheroics that show too much
parody or satire, but superheroes can also get way too self-important, and the
rare doses of humour in the DC and Marvel universes are always welcome.
After all, there are plenty of Superman
stories about JUSTICE and HONOUR and NOT BEING A DICK, it’s all right to have
the odd comic like DCP #81, which has a Superman with a Bug’s mind
uncontrollably running around and around the globe, waving his arms in the air
in panic, or the real deal having to convince his robots that he really is
Supes.
So issue number 52 of DC Comics Presents
was fascinating from a historical viewpoint, and number 81 was just goofy
enough to still gets some laughs, but it’s also fascinating to see how much the
character (and Giffen) grew in between those two issues.
As the art grows chunkier and livelier, and
Giffen starts doing strange things within the rigidity of a square panel, Ambush
Bug grows from slightly goofy villain to outright lunatic, breaking out of the strict rules of a superhero universe, and using the position of the Fool to point out all the craziness.
This invariably pisses off all the right people, and after this brief burst of Bug madness in the eightioes, he has only made sporadic returns, in the wonderful Nothing Special and the frankly bizarre Year None, before disappearing into limbo again. We all get the Ambush Bug we deserve, but we don't get enough of him..
Bob, a couple of more titles you should try and track down if given the opportunity from the same period in Giffen's career:
ReplyDeleteThe first is The Legion Of Substitute Superheroes Special-- while it features a script from then current Legion of Superheroes writer Paul Levitz, it's very much in the style of Ambush Bug. After all, any comic that features a hero named Stone Boy whose super power is to turn into inanimate, er, stone, can't be bad.
The second, and far far harder to find, is a one off black and white comic called the March Hair. This is written by Robert Loren Fleming and features the adventures of a hitman and how his life is hindered by a six foot tall invisible rabbit. It's essentially the film Harvey rewritten with the titular character being played by Bugs Bunny. And guns.
Both don't quite reach the heights of Ambush Bug (a series, like you, I've managed to track down almost every Giffen related appearance of-- I presume you have the issue of 52 where the Bug joined the JLA?) but are well worth reading.
Thanks for the suggestions, Carey. I've already got (and love) the Legion Of Substitute Superheroes book, but I'd never even heard of the March Hair, even though that sounds right up my street. It might prove impossible to find, but it's certainly something to look for.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, I have got that one issue of 52, because I really am that sad.