Comic Review: Rick and Morty vs. The Universe #3

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Rick finds himself stuck in a realm of non-canonical counterparts, and so must get their help to hatch an escape plan.

OUR TAKE

This big Rick and Morty event is closing in on its finale, so what better time to have an issue that is pretty much just Rick?! And Rick. And Rick, and Rick, and Rick, and so on and so forth. If you’re wondering why Morty wasn’t here, don’t worry, the editorial notes say that he’ll get his own tie-in next month before the final issue of the event, but that seems really weird to do that with one of the title characters of this franchise, wouldn’t you say? As for the issue itself, it’s actually the one I’ve enjoyed the most so far, even if the score is probably about the same. It’s not a big edge above the others but trust me, it’s there. And that mainly comes from the fact that these variants of Rick are actually pretty amusing, from the knock-off slogan Rick, the ice cream with gumball eyes Rick, and the 90’s comics Rick: Bloodryk. I could definitely see a brief run of him killing folks all Spawn-like. But naturally, this issue is just another example among hundreds that the main Rick we follow regularly is in fact the Rickiest Rick of them all, managing to use everyone and everything to his advantage and be the last Rick standing when all the dust has settled.

Still though, even if this is the third main issue of this story arc, the issue itself feels just about as much of a tie-in side story as the Jerry and Beth issue that came out right before this, and likely about as much as the Morty tie-in side story we’re getting next month to build up to the big finale. And with only one main issue left, let’s look back at how this event has been paced so far. The first issue established the premise with Rick accidentally killing their previous universe, the second had him and Morty scrambling to hide out and then face repercussions for this accident, but now this is just Rick doing Rick stuff with other Ricks mostly disconnected from the main problem, and we only have one more regular issue to resolve it all. Maybe this just needed to be three issues, but then they would have more tie-ins than regular issues, which has happened in other event comics (Marvel’s Civil War 2 comes to mind), but I can’t think of one time when it was an indicator of quality. Ah well, let’s see next month just what settles this and how it will lead into this newly announced “The End” storyline.