Lobo continues his slaughter alongside his new teammates in Lobo #3 written by Cullen Bunn, art by Reilly Brown color by Peter Pantazis and letting by Travis Lanham.
Lobo continues to hunt down the 8 assassins he’s been contracted to kill. He’s gotten three thus far. With his new misfit team alongside him it should be a breeze right? Right. In theory. We get a flashback to his time as a royal guard on Czarnia, where an attempt on the Emperor’s life is made by rebels as he does some sort of ritual. They fail, and the Emperor survives. Jump to the present as Lobo has himself literally stuck with hand phased through a machine; his current adversary, a dude wearing a literal old fashioned diving suit (more or less) can phase through things.
He cuts off his own hand (don’t worry it grows back) and they fight. Meanwhile his new team tries to figure out how to help, mostly tween killer-hacker Emily. Emily ends up being able to get the target to phase to them and she puts a lock down on his systems. He’s stuck mid phases between two places. Lobo delivers a casual stab and away they go to try to hunt down the next four. Problem? The next guy is probably in Metropolis and well…that’s Superman’s stomping ground. How can you manage with a god hovering nearby?
POSITIVES
I’m liking this more than I thought I would. Lobo is definitely a different creature now. The art objectifies him from time to time, he feels like a Gambit type of character, or a dark Dick Grayson. Him working with his new “team” is exciting and I hope, though I doubt is something that will last, and given this book’s sort of casual dismemberment and killing I’m not particularly sure any of his new three fellow assassins will survive long. The fact I care and don’t want them to means they’re being effectively written. The art is not terrible, in fact its actually quite good and the coloring is particularly attractive and snappy. It’s not my favorite art, but the coloring certainly helps it.
NEGATIVES
Does Lobo really need an ultimately tragic back story? All flashbacks and dream sequences thus far have pointed to Lobo really dropping the ball and being responsible for a lot of awful…awfulness. Does the character of Lobo actually benefit from that kind of foundation? The woobification of Lobo? Really? You can’t just let him be a really debonair jack-ass killer with a sliver of gold somewhere in there? You gotta give them tragedy. Sigh. Did the old Lobo have a tragic backstory? This also needs more dolphins immediately. I like the comedy in this but it really should be the forefront. Lobo is DC’s Deadpool and thus far there are hints of what this really could be like but they’re still treating this as way too straight of a comic, instead of really embracing its self-aware roots. Harley Quinn is doing a phenomenal job taking refugee in audacity, I want this to really plunge in that direction too. They could get really go Fifth Element style over here.
VERDICT
Surprisingly effective, brutal, but still just slightly better than average this series does surprise and I’d certainly recommend it for the current diversity and potential for outrageousness. Whether the former will stay and the latter come forth we’ll just have to see.
