Comics Review: Futurama #76

Spoilers Below:

“Captain Brannigan – The Windbag Soldier”

While on a delivery mission, Leela, Fry, and Bender learned that Zapp Brannigan was once a heroic super-soldier. However, years ago President Nixon attempted to clone him, which only yielded mutants, and badly damaged the DNA of the original Zapp – reducing him to an overeating sleazeball. This story was told in flashback by Kif, who explained that the messed-up clones were eventually used to fight in battle once, and we’re victorious, but all died in the process. To cover up the last bit of evidence about the cloning fiasco, Nixon ordered that Zapp get blasted into space. When another ship intercepted his body, they returned it to Kif, as per the instructions on a note that Kif left on him. This incident, and the fact that Zapp befriended Kif back when others put him down, explains the friendship between the two.

Best Bits:

1) “We’ll have a giant balloon and confetti and stuff!” Well, I’m sold.

2) Nixon: “We’re desperate here! Tape-erasing desperate!”

3) The Hulk spoof (“Bulk”) was yellow, and only had two arching hairs on the top of his head, just like Homer.

After issue #75 was so strong, I had high hopes for this one. The reason I enjoyed the last one was how much it seemed like it could have been an episode of the show. I’m not saying this so much about quality, but just being the same type of humor, as TV jokes don’t always translate to comic ones.

So on one hand, #76 could definitely still be an episode. But on the other, it would be one of the episodes I don’t particularly care for.

I love Futurama because it takes you to faraway lands, involves strange beings and random advanced technology, and has a lot of really funny characters that interact throughout the whole thing.

Although Zapp Brannigan can definitely be a funny character, storylines that focus mainly on him can become tiresome – especially when he’s intentionally not his laughable self throughout half of it.

Plus, the story was kind of serious. It definitely had its share of jokes, but it was definitely more plot-focused. As far as humor goes, there were more action gags and corny lines than anything else. Like the extended spit take by Leela at the beginning; funny, Futurama-type humor, but not particularly clever writing, like the show has when it’s at its best.

Overall, I still think this was a quality plot, as I enjoyed learning about the origins of Zapp and Kif, but it simply wasn’t that funny.