SCUD THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN #21 by Rob Schrab(2008).
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Mania Grade: B+
Issue: 21
Author: Rob Schrab
Publisher: Image
Price: $3.50

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SCUD THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN #21

Rob Schrab’s Scud the Disposable Assassin returns to Image after a 10 year absence. In a future where robotic assassins dispose of their targets and then self-destruct, Scud decided to live. He dismembered his target, Jeff – an amorphous female creature that only spoke in pop culture quotes. Leaving Jeff on life support, Scud worked mercenary jobs to pay the hospital bills and, thus, keep himself alive. He even found a girlfriend along the way, who died at the hands of a bunch of very mean angels. Then, the blackness came. When he awakes in this 21^st issue, the angels offer to return his lady love if he’ll burrow to the center of the Earth and blow it up from the inside. He agrees, without question. Scud spends most of this issue reacquainting himself with his supporting cast, many of whom are distraught following the bloody Zoo War between Voodoo Ben – with his zombie army – and the Spider-God, who no longer has legs. Scud’s old sidekick, Drywall, arrives to make things even more interesting. Everyone’s happy that the disposable assassin is back, but none of them realize that his return means the end of the world.

Scud the Disposable Assassin exists in a world of anarchic, almost non sequitur humor with equally chaotic art. The narrative itself follows suit, with a hero who intends to blow up the Earth to save his dead girlfriend – a decidedly villainous mission, if you ask me. It’s really not just a bunch of crap thrown together, though it comes close a few times. Above all, this issue serves to introduce new and old readers to Scud’s world and the physics-and-narrative-defying mechanics by which it plays. In that regard, most readers will either love or hate it. There’s nothing conventional about it, but therein lies its charm for those that can set aside expectations. All the same, it’s not really a matter of understanding the issue or not, because the offbeat story, humor, and art will simply not suit some readers. Schrab’s black and white, jagged art takes full advantage of the freewheeling rules of his own world – if there even are any. Rubber arms bearing guns emerge from robots like rubber bands, cars fly, and an anthropomorphic rabbit dies in a hail of bullets because he stops shooting to look at porn. It’s crazy stuff, but it’s still a twisted pleasure to read. Anyone that’s waited 10 years for this issue won’t be disappointed.

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