Johnny Raygun: Quarterly #2 Review

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Reviewer: Chris Delloiacono
Story Title: Enter the Friends of Evil

Story and Art by: Rich Woodall & Matt Talbot

Story Title: The Chrono Enigma Prophecy 3: Dark Time

Story by: Rich Woodall, Matt Talbot, & Greg Moutafis
Art by: Greg Moutafis

Front Cover by: Erik Larsen
Back Cover by: Rich Woodall & Matt Talbot (colored by Mark “Stinky” Fioravante)
Editor: N/A
Publisher: Jetpack Press

Reading classic back issue stories from the ‘60s and ‘70s have been some of my favorite comic experiences ever since I began collecting a long time ago. There’s something about the simpler storytelling, that almost always contained complete (or even multiple stories) in a single issue. There were ongoing subplots that would evolve over the course of years and not just single arcs, and lots of ancillary characters. The modern era with its often decompressed storytelling boasts precious few books that come close to capturing that classic feel. Savage Dragon had long been my one outlet for this approach to storytelling. Recently I began reading Marvel’s Spider-Girl and now I can say that Johnny Raygun: Quarterly has assumed a place on my read list because of its ability to make me feel young again!

To give you a bit of brief background, Johnny Raygun is a member of the Raygun Agency, which is an intergalactic peacekeeping organization. He’s pretty damn good at what he does, but he’s not perfect, and he’s got a really bad haircut. His best buddy in the Raygun Agency is the fishy H2Olaf. Oh yeah, Johnny’s got the hots for the sexy Amy Oni who’s the daughter of a “billionaire inventor.”

Johnny Raygun: Quarterly #2 is broken in two separate, and each entertaining in its own way, stories. The first story features Johnny battling a host of baddies. Johnny gets to tangle with Batanga the Zombie Master and his, you guessed it, zombie hordes (which includes a hilarious running gag where Johnny tries to get an explanation of what a horde construes). Helping out Batanga are his cronies the Friends of Evil. Without a doubt the show is stolen by the villainous Salamander. The Salamander has Johnny down and out at one point, when Johnny asks him to recount his origin. The full page origin is a hilarious takeoff on a variety of classic origins. The Salamander’s origin is part that of The Flash, Green Lantern, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, and Batman, not to mention a few others. In the end he really has no clue just what made him the way he is. You could say he’s a bastard by origin.

In the second story Johnny, H2Olaf, and Amy battle it out at a movie premiere with the film directors the Varpootee Brothers (Think Wachowski Bros.). The story takes some amusing jabs at cinema. Talking about the often lackluster nature of the sequel machine in Hollywood and the marketing might of the major film studios. It’s a hilarious take on the vapidity that can be disguised as deep cinema in today’s movie industry.

The book’s pulled together with some nice artwork by the pair of Woodall and Talbot in the first story and followed by Greg Moutafis on the second. The art changes styles when necessary for the story and translates the action extremely well. I have to mention that page with the Salamander’s origin again as it was utterly memorable. There’s also a brief “dream” that Johnny has while unconscious in the first story that shows his ideal woman.

If you’re hankering for a comic that’s a lot of fun, and never takes itself too seriously then Johnny Raygun: Quarterly is a book to check out. Talbot, Woodall, and Moutafis have crafted a winning issue. The series is building a cool cast of characters and a fun universe to spend some time in. Any book that gets the feel of the classic Marvel comics of the 1960s gets my vote of confidence—it even feels like Stan Lee is writing the narration!