[Editor’s note: This review may contain spoilers.]
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Russ Braun
Inker: John Kalisz
Summary
In the final (thankfully) chapter of Hard Travelin’ Heroz, the team heads to space to, and this is really the plot, send Dogwelder out to use all of the Dogwelding energy to, and I am being totally serious here, weld Sirius the dog star to another dog star making one, giant dog star sun that saves the world. Dogwelder dies. They land a space shuttle outside of the dive bar. Sixpack gets drunk and goes to tell the Justice League that it was his buddy who saved the world. They kick him out. Also, Constantine has sex with Guts, who is an actual living pile of guts, while her husband, Bueno watches and, um…pleasures himself. Yep. There you go. Good night everybody.
Positives
If you are still reading this after the summary, you can not expect this section to be very long. The best, and only good part, of this book, is the nod to Blade Runner at the end. After Dogwelder is dead and they are getting drunk at the bar, John makes a statue of Dogwelder out of gum wrappers. It is nice. I like it. I am really excited about the Blade Runner sequel. How about you?
The only other funny thing that happened in this book was that when Dogwelder goes into space, there is a space helmet over the dead dog puppet on his arm. I chuckled.
Negatives
It is hard to crap on a legend but here I go. Orson Welles ended up doing crappy commercials and he was unashamed. Brando did the Island of Doctor Moreau. He might have been ashamed. He should have been. That was terrible. This book is worse than that. I am not sure what happened. I get that Ennis wanted to make fun of DC. I get that he disapproves of Constantine being in JLD. I get that he misses the good old days of Vertigo Comics, but honestly, this is not the way to go about it. If you want to make something good at Vertigo, please, please please make something good. I will read it. Honestly, Vertigo has been crushing it lately so a new book by Dillon and Ennis would be totally welcome.
Did you catch that I said John Constantine has sex with a living pile of guts while a grown man, who is always dressed like a creepy guy who flashes you at the park, watches and… OK. I can not write it again.
Verdict
Everything about this book that was supposed to be funny came across as mean. Satire works when it is honest. Sure, feelings may get hurt with some stinging satire, but being mean, for the sake of being mean, does not work for me. I may be in the minority, but this whole thing was a waste of time. Please, Mr. Ennis. Make something good. I know you can.
