Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Sixpack & Dogwelder: Hard-Travelin’ Heroz #3 Review and **SPOILERS**


You Can’t Go Home Again

Writer: Garth Ennis 
Artist: Russ Braun 
Colorist: John Kalisz 
Letterer: Pat Brosseau 
Cover Artists: Steve Dillon and John Kalisz 
Cover Price: $3.99 
On Sale Date: October 26, 2016

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

Oh Section Eight 
You are so great 
From the bottom of my heart 
I wish this miniseries had eight parts

Check out my recap and review of Hard-Travelin’ Heroz #3!
Explain It!

Now that Dogwelder can speak out of a dog’s mouth, provided he’s got his arm shoved up its rectum, Sixpack is sure that Section Eight is primed to reach their heroic heights! Luckily, John Constantine’s got a special mission for them, but it involves Dogwelder…who just wandered away in the middle of their conversation. Hacken recalls that while Sixpack had his dalliance with Superman (in All-Star Section Eight #6! – wait, I’m not the editor) Dogwelder’s wife and kids from his, uh, previous life came in to plead for his return, and…he ended up welding dogs to the kids’ faces. Which would probably cost a bundle at a kid’s birthday party! She should have thanked him, instead of marrying some fat dude and moving to a cozy house in the suburbs, which is where he’s gone. He approaches his children in their in-ground pool, and using the dead dog affixed to his forearm, utters, “DADDY’S…HOME…” This made me laugh and cringe at the same time, which turns out to be a great workout for your core muscles. Dogwelder’s ex-wife comes out of the house wielding a kitchen knife, screaming at Dogwelder to get away, but he pleads—again, through a dead dog on his arm—for the family to get back together again, and allow love to guide them. Then the new dad steps out of the house, and Dogwelder fires up his welder.
Section Eight shows up with John Constantine, on his [snicker] cosmic surfboard, since John has traced them with his cell phone somehow. They show up in their usually spectacular fashion: Baytor screaming his name over and over, Sixpack falling right off the surfboard face-first. The new dad is pretty alarmed at this development, but Dogwelder’s ex-wife stands firm, knife in hand, ready to protect her family. Dogwelder is confused, but she explains that this man is her husband—and there can be no future for them if he continues to weld dogs to people’s faces and speak via a dead canine’s anus. Just then, the cops show up, so John surfs [chuckle] to the front yard to intercept them while Sixpack downs some vodka and pukes in the pool. Section Eight—to action! John tries to convince the police to scram, but eventually has to blow up one of their cars with his [chortle] ray gun. Then he swoops back to the team and tells them they’ve got to skedaddle—out of Gotham entirely! Before he leaves, he sets his ray gun [heh] to “Amnesia” and wipes the memories of Dogwelder’s old family, though presumably the vomit in the swimming pool will indicate something happened here.
Dogwelder is feeling pretty down, rejecting Sixpack’s offer of Forgettin’ Juice that he uses to suppress his own searing pain. There’s not a lot of time to ruminate on bad feelings, though, for Constantine takes the team to Great Pyramids of Egypt, where he’s got something to reveal to Dogwelder, that will somehow put his power in the proper context—which might have something to do with the hieroglyphics Baytor sees of an Ancient Egyptian welder creating the dog-headed Egyptian god Anubis. We’re not going to find out this issue, though, because the team has been beset by mummies! Which, I’d like to point out, have yet to get the updated Twilight treatment for tween consumption! Get on that, YA authors!
What the hell, Ennis? You give me a book full of farts and puke and somehow make me feel emotions and sympathy? For a guy that welds dogs to people’s faces?! Good show. John Constantine talks in a completely ludicrous Cockney accent through this whole issue that makes it worth reading alone, and a budding romance between he and Guts provides a suitable enough b-plot in a book that was really about the impact addiction can have on a family. Or maybe it was an important lesson in being careful with your words and whether or not they come from the mouth of a dead dog. Whatever it was about, I loved this issue from beginning to end, and even find the implications of Dogwelder’s lineage pretty interesting, though it merely set up the next issue.

Bits and Pieces:

Delving deeper in Dogwelder's past proves to be an awkward experience, which I suppose we could have expected. But we don't just take a look at Dogwelder the man, but Dogwelder the institution! With gorgeous artwork that captures expressions and gross-outs with equal skill, it's not tough to see why I read this book first every month!

8.5/10

2 comments:

  1. Not as outright funny as the last couple issues, but I still really enjoyed this. I really like this version of Constantine.

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    1. When we talked about this book for the podcast, I was dying laughing about it all over again! That last page where he's like "I used to be somebody" is hysterical.

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