Comic book review: Lobster Johnson- Get the Lobster Part 5 of 5: Not very smart, but worth a quick read

Writers: Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Artist: Tonci Zonjic
Colours: Dave Stewart
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 13th August 2014

**********Spoilers in review**********

This end of the arc issue has our ridiculously named superhero dispose of the bad guys, in suitably dramatic fashion, and emerge from what must have been certain death with a quip and attitude intact. Along the way the puppet masters behind the main villain are disappointingly brushed over with a vague reference to mind-control and Russia, and the cops still don’t trust Lobster, even though he has revealed that their Police of Chief was a mind controlled villain.

That Chief of Police wasted a lot of money hunting down the Lobster, and it’s announced that the money will now be put into ‘Housing and Schools,’ because ‘There is very little evidence that the Lobster was ever a direct threat to the Police force.’ Sounds great, doesn’t it? But in the very next sentence it’s announced that the cops actually will still be wasting money on trying to hunt down the Lobster, just under something called the Federal Division of Investigation instead. So who’s paying for that then? I guess it’s okay because they have their own ‘special’ money that doesn’t come from taxes, right?

Yeah, it’s pretty stupid, and I had to read it a couple of times over just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I wasn’t. This is just an aside, but people must know that the main role of any Police Force is to control the people, not to protect them. The Police are corporate enforcers, and their role is to make sure that the slaves on the corporate plantation don’t get too uppity and start to challenge their owners. Perhaps if comic book writers realised this basic truism we might start to progress and get up to date with some of these stories?

The enjoyment to be had out of this run hasn’t really been the threadbare story; it’s been the artwork by Tonci Zonjic and colouring by Dave Stewart. The weakest page in this book is the bland front cover, but the interior art is really great, the action scenes in particular have an almost animated quality about them, and I give huge credit to Dave Stewart for this. Two panels standout in this book, and they are the two most important panels in the story, the demise of the villain, and the return of the hero.

So the story wasn’t up to much, it left me feeling a bit unsatisfied, but the hero himself, a moody recalcitrant, moral law upholder who does what is right and punishes those who deserve punishment remains a personal favourite. He’s stuck in the post WW1 period though, so you get no contemporary concerns here about lawless government, NSA spying, endless foreign wars for the benefit of the rich, and rapid expansion of a Police state in western countries where governments see their own civilians as their number on enemy. None of these concerns are explored here, and the socio-political commentary, out of a ranking of one to ten, is a big fat zero.

What you do get here though is a strong civic-minded individual driven by a duty to see the bad guys get what they deserve. He is a civilian, and he works for the people, not the corporate enforcers with their ridiculous uniforms, silly moustaches and ignorance about how the system really works to protect the rich and enslave the poor. Lobster has no special powers, just his own strength, agility, smarts and a team of dedicated people helping him out with the latest gadgets available in the 1920’s. Let’s face it, he’s Batman under a different name.

I’d prefer him to be getting the bad guys in 2014 rather than some time in the 1920’s, but I guess he’s going to remain in this safe comic book period with evil Nazi’s, Russian spies and the clearly defined good guys all having American accents. This period of world history is so beloved of contemporary comic book writers as they have uncontroversial, easily defined villains. They don't have to deal with all of the uncomfortable truths of today, with our own governments acting like comic book villains and our soldiers and Police forces mindlessly obeying orders just like the loyal and patriotic Germans did in the late 1930’s and 40’s.

That’s the biggest issue that comic book writers have to deal with in 2014, just who is the good guy and who is the bad guy now? They either don’t know, or they are being deliberately ignorant about it. That is why so many of these books still have old WW2 era Nazi’s, not the modern Ukrainian Nazi’s of course, as they’re on our side now, just like the ‘rebels’ in Syria. Oh, they are ISIS now, are they? Are they still the good guys now they are tearing children in half? We funded them after all, and look, they are running around in American army jeeps. And I thought we invaded Iraq because of terrorism, so why is it being over-ran by terrorists right now?

Do you see what I mean? Comic book writers need to get a handle on the contradictions of our time if they want to be relevant, and smart about what has happened to this world post September 11th 2001. This book isn’t very smart. It’s stuck in that safe Nazi ‘s and Communists period, and I guess that’s where Lobster will remain.  It’s not a particularly great book, but the art; dramatic colouring and strong character of Lobster himself makes it at least worth a quick read.


Rating: 6/10