Komix X-Treme - Hitman/Lobo

Writer: Garth Ennis
Artists: Doug Mahnke
Colours: Carla Feeeny (c)
Publisher: DC Comics

Garth Ennis' 2000AD-style take on the DCU is one of the big three of comics I always recommend to people who want to read something that isn't a usual super hero book. Hitman, Transmetropolitian and Preacher showed off what a comic could be in a mainstream release without resorting to Lycra clad muscle-men punching each other. All three also manage to be insanely funny, whilst ripping the heart out of your chest on a fairly regular basis.

This however...

This is a Lobo / Hitman crossover.

This sounds like a perfect team-up. Lobo is a cartoonish character. One who became a fantastic parody of the comics of the 90s, and with Alan Grant at the helm, it had a very British slant on American over-the-top anti-heroes. Plus dolphins.

Hitman... actually, Hitman is a street level book that did a lot of the same things. The main difference being that through the funny, Tommy and Co became very well rounded characters, and you felt the loss when Hitman began it's final run.

It's difficult to write up the plot to this one. As the plot is:

Tommy and Tiegal argue. Tommy is in bad mood. Lobo appears. Picks on Sixpack. Tommy angers Lobo. Chase. Mob goes after Tommy. Tommy uses Lobo to take out Mob Guys. Section 8 helps Tommy take out Lobo. Lobo goes home.

It's hard to pin down what's wrong here. Evrything is in place, and the art and writing are suitably madcap and over the top. Doug Mahnke takes a lot of his style from his work on The Mask and creates a great looking book, and Ennis' dialogue is on fine form. But the book becomes a long screwball style chase scene with Lobo very quickly becoming a parody of himself (possibly the point?). The end gag is a pretty good one, and I love seeing Section 8 in any kind of appearence, but this comes across as flat. More so when you look at what Lobo and Hitman were doing in their respective books at the time. 

This is a book worth looking at for the art, and for some snappy dialogue, but the major issue is that Lobo is not taken seriously at all. This may seem a weird thing to say for a character who became parody who slipped into self-parody being used as a parody, but Lobo has be taken as a serious threat by other people in the story for him to work. And in this case, it has not.

Adam "Gruffy" Nicol is the High Lord Protector of the Old Oilhouse, and has screamed at things not working right with it since the day it was born. His knowledge and love of 90's tat and pop culture borders on the worryingly psychotic....