Comics Review: Bravest Warriors #20

While I am a huge fan of Bravest Warriors, I’ve never took the time to read the comic. Mostly because I never really knew it existed. I knew that Hot Topic had a couple issues of a Catbug comic but since the comic shop near my house closed, I didn’t know if it was just a Hot Topic item or if there was a real comic book series. Well, now I know and, as G.I. Joe told me back in the ’80s, knowing is half the battle.

A lot of this issue deals with Chris being an Emotion Lord. The Huxtabites, which sound like a snack from The Cosby Show, are a techno-organic race that lost their emotions to an Aeon Worm. Aeon Worms eat emotions, of course. However, Beth’s father took the Worm from the Topanga Quadrant, leaving the Huxtabites to deal with their feelings. Instead of dealing, they continually kidnap Emotion Lords to absorb their emotions for them. Unfortunately, this is too much for the Emotion Lords and each of them ends up dying a horrible death. Hence why they now need Chris to take the Aeon Throne.

There are quite a few flashbacks to Beth’s father, Johnny Tezuka, and what he did with the Aeon Worm. Thanks to the Worm, the Courageous Battlers (that would be the parents of the Bravest Warriors) became mighty heroes. Unfortunately, in order to keep the team’s strength, Johnny had to feed Beth’s emotions to the Worm. Apparently, her extra awesome DNA makes life forms evolve. When Chris’s mom, Josephine Kirkman, finds out what Johnny has done, he sends the Worm into the See Through Dimension.

Back to the present! The rest of the Bravest Warriors escape from Huxtabite jail with some help from Impossibear and rush off to save Chris from becoming an Emotion Lord skeleton. Chris wants to sacrifice himself, so Beth brings in Catbug and the space pirates to help them battle the Huxtabites. Buns are whupped, tractor beams are engaged, and our crew arrives home to find hamsters having a Christmas party. It turns out that they had been gone for two whole months! But now things will be better, right?

This issue was a little weird to me. The events are supposed to take place somewhere between episodes 8 and 10 in Season 2. Now, the comic just dropped on May 28. However, The Parasox Pub, which is episode 10 of the animated series, released on May 22. It makes the events of the comic seem a little out of place. Especially since the final panel of the comic seems to lead directly into The Parasox Pub. In addition, some of the jokes, specifically from the Huxtabites, seemed a little forced. While I enjoyed the comic, it didn’t seem to have that Bravest Warriors thing that makes it so awesome. I actually think I might have enjoyed it better if it was released last week instead of this week. I definitely would have appreciated the direct lead-in to the show more.