COMICS: Dave's Minicomic Rant: ArmyAnts,AmoebaAdv

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Minicomic Rant:

Michael T. Desing's Army Ants #14 "The McGuffin"
Amoeba Adventures #25-27 "Time Out Of Joint"

Sigh, no more Amoeba Adventures after this. There were such high hopes
at the 1996 Mid-Ohio Con, but it all fell apart. Oh well.

CAPSULES

Army Ants #14: Teddy Bear Press - Felt a bit rushed, like Desing decided
he had to have everything set up for the rest of the arc this issue, but
otherwise good. Recommended, if you can find it. $1.50/$2.00Cn
Amoeba Adventures #25-27: Protoplasm Press - Max's art isn't his best
(not surprising, since he was growing disaffected with the book, apparently),
and while Nik's art on the final issue (and parts of the other two) is much
better than what he was doing last time he drew an issue, it's still pretty
weak. Story has a few inconsistencies, but is otherwise a good wrap-up.
Recommended. $2.50/$3.00Cn each

Eine

Kleine

Spoiler

Space

Army Ants "Escape from Blackwater Keep": Looks like the Bees are being
set up as the WWII-era Italians of this conflict, somewhat laughable and
inept, but still nasty. Thus, it's relatively easy for Gunner (who can hold
his breath longer than the bees give him credit for) to free the captured
squad members as well as the mysterious prisoner who they thought might be
Zak. It's not, it's the Ladybug Honeydew from the nightclub (and the
superhero issue). Meanwhile, thanks to lax Bee security, Pierre the sniper
gets a sweet shot at the Wasp empress and fatally injures her. The only
hope? A magic elixir Nergrim possesses. Okay, now all the major factions
other than the Ants are involved (well, the fleas aren't really major, but
the ones under the mosquito's command from last issue will be involved, I
suppose). The Hornets want to attack the contest to get revenge for losing
Major Blood's alliance. The Wasps need to get the elixir from Nergrim. The
Bees no doubt will act as muscle for the Wasps.
And the Ants? Well, Honeydew gets her next intelligence job, to enter
the contest as the Ladybug representative. And the invitation mentions that,
surprising no one who read #13 carefully, Zak's in the tournament. Now
everyone's gonna be heading for the tourney for some reason or another.
Wonder if any of the Ants will remember that Zak gave his marker to Nergrim?

Amoeba "Paths," "Wrath," and "What Happened Next": Well, after months of
waiting, I finally have all of these issues in front of me. Max Ink was the
local distributor for the series, but when he gave up on drawing it, he
apparently decided not to bother selling copies either. So I got Nik's email
to the Laughing Ogre guys and they arranged an order.
Here's the plot summary. Alex's father was gunned down senselessly
before his graduation, which eventually caused him to try and find a way to
time travel so he could save his dad. In the process, he became unstuck in
time, ending up as The Inverted Man, and working for Macabre. When he turned
on Macabre (AA #10), he bounced forwards in time and witnessed his death at
the hands of the All-Spongy Squadron, then back in time to be saved from his
condition. He decided to avert his own death by killing the Squadron first.
I think everyone but Alex himself sees where this one is going, yes? After a
few clever actions on the part of several of the heroes, Alex is indeed
killed and dies in the manner he witnessed, leaving the team to wonder why
the hell this all had to happen. In the aftermath, the team breaks up,
everyone goes their separate ways, Herr Heinous loses at pool to Pro and
Rambunny, and Pro rejects the guidance of the immortal he met before this all
went down. Then he and Dawn hike off into the sunset. Except that it's
night, but it's figurative.
Most of this ties together pretty well, although you have to make some
allowances for things not being quite what Nik said they were at the time
(since anything before about #15 happened before he had the Alex/Dark One
thing all worked out). For instance, Alex wasn't really an Inverted Man, he
didn't move backwards in time, rather he moved chaotically through it. More
of a Sporadic Man. }-> And while it was implied that the Dark One stranded
the team in the age of the dinosaurs, that wouldn't make too much sense given
Alex's current motivation: if he had a working time machine, he'd use it to
go back in time and save his father, thus completely averting the timeline in
which he dies at the hands of the All-Spongy Squadron. He wouldn't just
strand Pro and the others with it.
Personally, I have a different theory on how that one worked (and since
this is the end of the series, I'm unlikely to be proven right or wrong). I
think Jacob Potter (the immortal) sent the group back in time, for several
reasons of his own. One, it would buy them breathing space, time to recover
from the recent trials, before the Dark One could really get going (I presume
Jacob was aware of Alex from the get-go). Two, it would deny Alex the use of
the time machine himself, forcing his hand and making sure that the
"character-building" confrontation would happen. Finally, there might have
been a more specific reason to shove Pro back to that time, possibly to seed
the world with the potential to create immortals. I also think that the
expedition which travelled back in time to rescue the group wasn't randomly
searching caves...I think Jacob pointed them at the proper place to look, so
that Pro could be returned to the present.
Well, enough speculation...the number of people who will read this and
know what I'm talking about is probably in the low single digits.
So, the series is over. It started goofy, like a lot of things do. But
it stands as another reminder that just because the setting is silly, that
doesn't mean the stories can't be serious.

Dave Van Domelen, "To the All-Spongy Squadron, whose name, I confess,
might have been a little stupid, but whose purposes were never less than
noble." - Prometheus