The Complete Major Bummer Super Slacktacular! TPPublisher: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: September 2011
Price: $29.99
Creator(s): John Arcudi, Doug Mahnke
Format: 384 pgs; Full-Color; Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-5958-2534-6
ICv2 Ratings: 5 Stars out of 5 stars
Extraterrestrial college students deliver a package containing a device bestows super powers to whoever opens it, but unfortunately it's opened by Lou Martin, a unmotivated dirtball who does absolutely nothing with his new abilities. He'd be perfectly happy continuing his low-rent existence of playing video games if it weren't for the would-be superheroes who want him to join their team. Not to mention the gang of lowlifes who want him dead as well as the aliens, monsters, Nazi dinosaurs...
Although it tweaks every conceivable superhero trope you really can't call Major Bummer a parody of the genre. And while it's definitely very funny it's not exactly a comedy, at least in the conventional sense of the word. It doesn't rely on jokes, cheap or otherwise, so much as an atmosphere of compounding weirdness where one strange concept is laid on top of another. And it certainly doesn’t look like a spoof; if you aren't paying close attention it looks like a conventional action/adventure comic, thanks to Doug Mahnke's highly detailed art.
With it's cast of unlikable but entirely relatable characters, John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke's Major Bummer was less than successful when it was first serialized by DC in 1996; I'd like to say that it was ahead of it's time but over a decade later there's still nothing like it. This collection should appeal to anyone who likes comics; it's both long overdue and much appreciated.
--Steve Bennett: Writer and retail services consultant
