Drunken Comics Rage

While at the San Diego Comic Convention, I ran across a trade paperback book called Last Planet Standing. It had Galactus on the cover, was set in the future with new characters and was 60% off making it all of like $5.00. I picked it up.

I read it today, along with a decent glass of cheap wine. The wine is called Crane Lake, and isn't horrible, and certainly not for the $5.00 I bought it for. Just didn't feel like breaking out any of the good stuff tonight, as my wine cooler is getting a little light.

Looking at the $5.00 TPB, and the $5.00 wine, I'm starting to think I'll buy just about anything for $5.00. Anyway….

First off, the characters were kind of lame. The Fantastic Five are pretty much the same team that currently have a mini-series out, and they weren't bad. Everyone else in the book was future retreads of current characters. There was a J2 (Juggernaut's son), American Dream (chick Captain America), Mainframe (Iron Man look alike) and Spiderman's daughter (all the same powers as Dad) just to mention a few. It was like they just took popular characters at the time, and made some kid/future version of them. Kind of silly.

***SPOILER ALERTS*** 

The plot wasn't bad until you think about it a little. Galactus is trying to create a new big bang to free him of his planet eating hunger. Trouble is that will destroy the whole Universe as we know it. Kind of like me blowing up the Earth so I never have to eat another cheeseburger. Kind of over the top if you ask me, but hey, he's a giant planet eating guy in purple armor that's billions of years old. Maybe he's just really tired of the eating thing by now.

The biggest trouble with the story was the dialog. The story wasn't a bad idea, and the plot was decently thought out. There were a few cheesy parts, but I can let that slide. It's just that everyone in the comic had to tell you who they were, what they were doing, and why they were doing it, EVERY time they spoke. Example:

"I am Ghostshark, and I have the ability to walk to the refrigerator! How dare you hide the cans of Coke in there! Do you not understand? Watch as I simply walk over, open the door AND TAKE WHAT I WANT!!"

And they did that every issue, for just about everything that happened.

In the end, the heroes of course mess up the big purple guy's plans at the last possible moment. The ending unfortunately took the award for cheesy. Galactus is about to actually die, and Silver Surfer put some sort of protective bubble around them. Partly to try and save the Purple Planet Eater, and partly to save the Earth if the big guy explodes. What happens? The two of them merge into one new being.

Cheesy #1: They now wield something better than the Power Cosmic, called the Power Essential.

Cheesy #2: The new guys looks like the Silver Surfer, wearing Galactus' armor. No lie. Little Silver Galactus on a surf board.

Cheesy #3: He doesn't need to feed, has all this new and cool power, and he decides he will now be The Builder of Worlds, and The Guardian of Life, transforming dead planets into live ones. Like he's now some sort of Cosmic Hippie or something.

Was it worth the $5.00? Maybe. I mean it did mildly entertain me, but not in a good way. I just kept flipping the pages to see what new and silly thing they had the characters say next. The dialog I'm sure sounded good in the writer's head. Maybe even with the voices he gave each character. Or maybe it was just the voices in the writer's head telling him it was good. Who knows.

I bought 4 or 5 other TPBs at SDCC. Hopefully they're better than this one.

Filed under: Ghostshark's Rants, Marvel Comics