Axe Cop
chops his way to the climactic conclusion of the Bad Guy Earth trilogy this month. I won't spoil what
happens in this advance review, but suffice it to say: It's so good that it'll
chop off your head with awesomeness!
Issue
two left Axe Cop, and his band of heroes in the year 0,000,0. A distant
time when humans and dinosaurs didn't exist, but animals could talk. And
much talking does ensue. Here the story begins to come together as the
many plot threads are woven together, explaining the origins of the evil
psychic planet, and the motivation of the psychic brothers for turning Earth
into Bad Guy Earth.
The
bizarre, silly and nonsensical plot described above sprang from the mind of
child, and has been drawn exactly as described by his older brother. This
is why Axe Cop fights a monster who shoots lava from his feet and has
Machine-gun ears. Other bits of relentless absurdism abound on every
page, including a scene in which a woman rides "A gorilla riding a
lion", a panel that shows Axe Cop using an invisible walkie-talkie, and
dialog expressing the earnest belief that if you eat the President’s brain
you’ll be the new President.
Despite all of
this hyper-active child logic, the story still manages to hold together.
It's paced well, accelerating at exponential speeds, but always moving
faster, with Axe Cop’s team fighting progressively more challenging
battles. There are lightning-fast plot twists that culminate in one final
mind-blowing paradigm shift for the ultimate battle, and Axe Cop delivers his catchphrase
at just the right moment. “I’m
gonna chop your head off”, indeed.
After many
climaxes and epilogs, this three-part mini-series ends with a very satisfying
conclusion that should leave fans laughing right up to the heart-wrenching
denouement. It even bookends
itself with references to plot elements in the first issue. It’s surprising how such a
non-sequitural story can also be so cohesive.
Anyone who
read the first two issues should definitely pick up issue 3 to see how it all
turns out. If you missed the previous two issues, it’s worth the effort to
track them down.
The art by Ethan Nicolle which depicts this crazy story maintains a cartoony quality that suits the humorous intent of the project, but
also portrays these events as heroic adventure. There’s a two-page spread in the middle of the book
that shows one of the grand battle sequences, and it manages to be both ridiculous
and exciting at the same time.
In my review of issue 2, I had pointed out that Axe Cop can
lose its edge when read in large quantities, and might be best enjoyed in the
small doses of its web-comic origins.
However in this issue, knowing that the big climax is just pages away,
it is a lot easier to read through a 27 page story in one large chunk. The three issue miniseries works very
well for Axe Cop; it gives the writer the chance to tell a relatively epic
story, but readers won’t find themselves burned out before the fun stops.
Axe Cop fans might worry that young writer Malachi Nicolle
might run out of ideas eventually, but this storyline shows that his kid-sized
head is crammed full of enough ideas to produce plenty more cases for Axe Cop
and pals to solve, whether they be short online comics, or more print work like
the Bad Guy Earth trilogy.
Overall Score – 8.6/10