i was pleasantly surprised to see The Kamandi Challenge in DC's recent solicitations. Not only am I glad to see The Last Boy on Earth getting some more exposure, it also is using the round-robin format of DC Challenge, a fondly remembered maxi-series. Each issue is handled by a different creative team that has to solve a cliffhanger and leave a new one while keeping the story moving along. Fun stuff!
Yesterday and today showed covers of characters who, even though they never teamed up, would make a natural pairing and one heck of a good story if the respective owners of these characters were to collaborate. I am curious about today's cover. I wondered who, after their inevitable fight scene, would emerge as the common enemy (or enemies).
ReplyDeleteTheir common enemy would be the racist tigers led by the Great Caesar out to invade the Savage Land.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes! The Golden Age Ka-Zar (nee David Rand). But, if I remember correctly, he had a pet tiger--one of those rare African subspecies invented by comic strip authors--he was partially named after! So, the anthropomorphic ones of post-Disaster Earth might cause him a mental conflict of interest.
ReplyDeleteI hope that the Kamandi Challenge is flowing better than the DC Challenge did. Every new issue that came out, I was mentally yelling at the writers who didn't solve the Riddler's number puzzle, "Aaargh! It's not that hard!"
ReplyDeleteFor some reason this cover makes me want to see Hawkman meet the Herculoids.
ReplyDeleteOther Bob -- The resolution that got to me with the DC Challenge was when Captain Marvel and Doctor Fate were caught in the maws of a magic-eating monster. The answer virtually leaped off the page at me (have Cap say "Shazam,", Billy squirms away, and Kent throws Doc's helmet to him), but the following writer missed that and created a Deus ex Machina with the Silent Knight instead.
I've been reading The Kamandi Challenge and, so far, I'd say it's going pretty well. The real (ahem) challenge as I see it is that Kamandi strikes me as one of those characters that every writer probably has a dream story that he or she is dying to tell. That story might not have much to do with what happened in the previous issue which means that we end up with a lot of abrupt jumps from story to story. For that reason, I think I'd rather that DC simply invited the writer/artist teams to create their ultimate single issue Kamandi stories without necessarily worrying about how they all connect together. However, I guess this is really a criticism of what The Kamandi Challenge is not rather than what it is.
ReplyDeleteI think KAMANDI CHALLENGE has bitten the proverbial dust. I bought the first two issues in my neck of the woods...and no store I patronize has carried anything since.
ReplyDeleteIssues 3 & 4 are definitely out, at least: They're in my box at the comics store, awaiting purchase... but I'm waiting for the shop to get hold of a copy of #1 (which I was just too late to order "on time") as well, first, so that I can read them in the correct order.
ReplyDeleteThen, the stores I patronize are either not ordering them. Or they're being stiffed by monopolistic distributors (*Koff!--Diamond--Koff!*).
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