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Where else are you going to see ‘Mazing Man or Sugar and Spice nowadays?

It's almost like the last 20 years have never happened. 

There are just some mysteries and questions that are bigger than the Batman is capable of.  Murders that lead to questions of who we are and where we come from are just a bit too metaphysical for Batman.  Such is the murder of Jonni DC, the continuity cop who's kept DC running right all of these years.  She's the one who has straightened out continuity glitches and tidied up the loose ends around the DC multiverse.  She's the one who's overseen the comics and you thought it was Dan Didio, didn't you?  But when she's killed, there's only one detective to turn to; Ambush Bug.

Of course, he's out shopping and trying to find a refrigerator that doesn't have a dead body stuffed inside of it.

After over 15 years, Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming once again team up to produce their unique brand of meta-humor from DC.  In Ambush Bug, they have a character who knows he's a comic book character living in a comic book world.  Imagine a cross between Roger Rabbit and Loki (the original trickster god and not the Marvel character) whose sole purpose is to make fun of the world he lives in.  That's Ambush Bug.  Over the years, the Bug has mellowed out a bit.  He was originally a Mxyzptlk stand-in, though more chaotic and anarchic.  Maybe it's the years or maybe it's the mileage but Ambush Bug has become more set in his ways.  He wears khakis and button-down shirts and almost seems restrained now.  He's not out to cause trouble like he used to.  In the firs issue of his new miniseries Ambush Bug: Year None, trouble just seems to find him and he muddles through it. 

Back in 1986 with the first Ambush Bug miniseries, the book commented on a post-Crisis on Infinite Earths story, reveling in lost characters from the 1950s and 1960s.  It was Giffen and Fleming's ode to DC's Silver Age, refusing to let go of those characters even as they were wiped out in the name of a newer and crisper continuity.  Even as DC was trying to shove those characters under the continuity carpet, Giffen and Fleming put them in a spotlight and showed how silly and fun characters like Space Cabby, Sugar and Spike and Ace the Bat Hound were.  At the same time, Giffen and Loring were able to also show us what we lost thanks to Crisis on Infinite Earths. 

Giffen and Fleming haven't lost a bit of wit since those first minis.  Ambush Bug: Year None still pulls out those old characters.  The Green Team, Egg Fu, Sugar sans Spike and even Glop show up.  And like old times, those characters are wonderfully used even as you have to ponder where on Earth their creators came up with those ideas.  But the humor in this issue is the same humor that was funny in 1986.  It's almost all the same characters and similar jokes.  The last 20 years are ripe with characters and plots that need to be remembered and ridiculed.  Where's mullet Superman?  Where's Zero Hour or Infinite Crisis?  Where's the endless parade of crossovers and events that have been such a large part of DC?

They do slip in one or two references to stuff that's happened recently.  For instance, did you know that Ambush Bug really is why Jean Loring killed Sue Dibny?  There's a great scene showing how serious and stuff comics have become by completely tearing down one of the more self-important events in recent memory.  There's almost little to no commentary on DC and where it is nowadays.  It's like the creators are still trapped back in the 80s, writing the same jokes and telling the same gags.  So much has happened since the last time these guys got together to tell a story but the only real evidence of that in this issue is a joke about Identity Crisis. 

But you know something?  Twenty years ago Space Cabbie jokes were funny and here in 2008, they're still funny.  A book filled with Phantom Stranger, DC checkerboard and Henry Boltinoff jokes will always be welcomed.  But with all the time that has passed, couldn't Giffen and Loring found a way to slip in one Azrael or even one 52 joke in there somewhere?

Ambush Bug: Year None #1
"Hey, You Sank My Battle-Ax!"
Plotted & Pencilled by: Wonder Chick (Keith Giffen)
Dialogued by: Wonder Chick (Robert Loren Fleming)
Inked by: Wonder Chick (Al Milgrom)
Lettered by: Wonder Chick (Pat Brosseau)
Colored by: Wonder Chick (Guy Major)


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