Plot: Lobo walks into Noonan's. YOU figure it out.
While Preacher is wrapping up next month, Garth Ennis' 2000 A.D.-esque DC Universe opus, Hitman, begins its final storyline next week. Not a moment too soon, I say. The series has long been feeling like it's treading water, particularly after "For Tomorrow." "The Old Dog" was emotionally wrenching but shamefully predictable, but issue #50, the epilogue, seemed a perfect place to end the series. Yet, it's still going on, with a fun "Superguy" two-parter, and this one-shot, which I guess is seen as a last humorous blast before the book gets serious with its final run. The book features plenty of characters that have been knocked off already, placing this story at some point before "The Old Dog."
What sounds like a perfect match- a book known for its violent, over-the-top humor paired with the original bastich, turns out to be a rather disappointing exposure of the weaknesses of a book that should have ended by now. For new fans and Lobo haters, this might be fun. But for someone like me, who's read the book for the past four years, That Stupid Bastich feels like more of the same.
I'm not really sure what went wrong with this book. All the elements are in place, and Ennis managed to wrangle a good chuckle or two out of me. Doug Mahnke is certainly more than qualified to take on a project like this given his madcap, Giffen-esque kinetics on The Mask. It doesn't add up, though: most of it is just one long chase scene, with Lobo saying "frag" every other sentence in what I assume is a satirical comment on the character. Ho ho.
I'm not sure why Ennis and his editor, Peter Tomasi, decided to release this as a four dollar one-shot. With a little creative editing, you could have whittled this down to a one-issue story in the regular series. I'm not sure that would have improved it, however. There is basically a laundry list of Hitman cliches in here. Tommy had a fight with Tiegel, who can't deal with his job (remember when this used to be an interesting relationship, before Ennis forgot she was in the book?). He's in a bad mood. Lobo picks on Sixpack. Tommy hacks off Lobo, leads him on a chase. A couple mob guys spot Tommy. Tommy uses Lobo to deal with the mob guys. Section Eight helps Tommy take out Lobo. The end.
I believe the major problem here is that Ennis doesn't take Lobo all that seriously, as a threat or as a comic foil. Most of the satire directed at the character is fairly limp, since, as I noted with Christopher Priest's Dirty Wolff in last month's Deadpool, the character as written by his co-creator Keith Giffen was supposed to be satirical, over-the-top. It's rather bizarre to see a parody of a character that long ago slipped into a self-parody of a parody. There are no surprises here, just gore galore. For four dollars. Section Eight does their thing. For four dollars. There's another tired Tommy/Tiegel breakup. For four dollars.
I've seen a lot of what happens in That Stupid Bastich in the ongoing series, and this story seems like just another retread. If nothing else, it illustrates how tired the ongoing series has gotten, and how great the need for final closure is. "Closing Time" can't come soon enough for this book.
