After reading the previous issue of Ambush Bug I was ready to throw it down and not read the next one. It was confusing and wasn’t funny enough to redeem itself. This issue, however, bounced right back into the flow the first one had.

To get an idea of the tone of the book, scan no further then the recap page featuring the Source Wall playing a slot machine in a casino. In a place where they’re supposed to give the reader information about previous books, it has the wall ranting about marriage and has barely any relevence to the prior story line. All for a funny gag about breaking the fourth wall. But at the same time, it’s completely relevant as the Source Wall complains about marriage and this issue is about Ambush Bug getting married. This irrelevantly relevant opening page really got me in the mood for some crazy crap. By page four the multiverse appears to be land-sliding down a hill with Ambush Bug running in terror saying, “Keith has gone bananas with the visual symbolism!”

Ambush Bug jumps around reality trying to get a divorce from Dumb Bunny. He runs into Lord Neron, the alternate Earth Kents who are in limbo before Infinite Crisis (in this case, Superboy Prime is a turtle; likely due to copyright reasons), Darkseid on Apokolips where they sing karaoke together, Jerro the merboy in Atlantis, and, of course, Go-Go Chex. There were some others, but I’m not a DC fan so some of it went over my head.

The best part has to be when he visits the Kents in limbo. Super Turtle, who is supposed to be Superboy Prime, is already insane in this and Giffen takes a moment to make fun that he is now called Superman Prime. Lois in this scene has lost it, hates everyone, and hits on Ambush Bug before he leaves. Gray-haired Superman the whole while is grilling and seems to be oblivious to the others going crazy. Alexander Luthor is in the scene also, but only has one line.

Even though I’m not a DC fan, I didn’t have trouble following what was going on. The only thing I really was thrown off by was who Jerro was. Being a Marvel fan I did notice similarities between how Ambush Bug is going around observing DC events from years ago and how Brian Michael Bendis is using the Mighty Avengers and New Avengers titles to go back and show what the Skrulls were up to in past Marvel events. Though in both cases, it does show the character occasionally affecting the outcome it mostly is just a lot of rehashing old material. In fact, I’d say that Ambush Bug does less rehashing then Bendis has been doing with his tie-ins. It made me realize that much of what Bendis is doing could be considered Red Sky tie-ins.

Superhero genre fans should try out this series as it pokes fun at the genre. Its level of irrelevance makes it so that a reader can jump on at any issue. If you’re not a DC fan, just make sure you have a friend who is a DC fan that can explain some of the jokes to you, or at least be good at looking up info the internet.

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