Jonny Quest Special (1988) #1-2 by Arthur Byron Cover, Richard Howell, John Hebert and others
This is the first of two Jonny Quest mini-series that appeared in late 1988. That wasn’t because the market suddenly demanded my Jonny Quest product, but because Comico was losing the Jonny Quest license by the end of the year, so they rushed out more books to try to eke out some more money before time was up.
At least that’s my guess — these two issues have different artists, and they feel like they were done in a hurry.
Like… what is Jonny wearing!? Mr. Howell, please!
And there’s these panels that are just… wonky.
I mean, it’s all just minor stuff, but there’s panel after panel that could perhaps have done with a little more time on the artwork.
The writer tries to give Dr. Quest some character, and originally enough, it’s not through the age-old medium of Daddy Issues, but instead Granddaddy Issues! Now that’s new!
Oh, and the story? There bare is a story here — it’s about Granddaddy Quest having discovered a time machine, so the timelines are breaking down, and you get to see alternate (and perhaps evil) versions of the crew. Then Dr. Quest figures out that the Cat Lady is the problem, and then everything returns to normal. The end. (There’s the standard ironic time travel twist at the end.)
The second issue is very, very different.
It’s set in the Soviet Union, which has been struck by a mysterious illness that makes people into grey zombie-like people with a hive mind (much commentary), and then Dr. Quest figures out that being bitten by the dog un-zombifies people (the dog has magic saliva…?) and then it’s over.
It’s very strange, and doesn’t make much sense.
WWRD — that’s something we’ve all asked ourselves.
And this is how it ends, with a gag… that I don’t get, even after flipping back a few pages (and then deciding I didn’t really care, so it’ll have to remain a mystery, unless somebody leaves a comment explaining it).
… Isn’t Boris the fat guy? Oh, is Boris the guy with the stache? I don’t know. And I guess that’s three words, even if they’re not said at once, but sequentially.
Oh, us nerds…
Amazing Heroes #154, page #59:
To this devoted fan of the regular
Jonny Quest comic book, this Special
#1 is a big disappointment! A lot
happens at breakneck speed, so much
that Jonny and the regular cast are
completely bewildered—and so is the
reader.
A dimensional warp materializes
just outside the Quest Institute, trig-
gered by the arrival of an adventurer
in a time machine and an alien cat-
girl who he picked up on his travels.
They are fleeing enemies who are
attacking them. “I never knew why.
I never cared why,” the adventurer
says. Suddenly more sets of dimen-
sional travelers start popping out in
rapid succession, both humans and
aliens, both criminals and lawmen
(maybe—they act more like trigger-
happy bounty hunters), including evil
duplicates of Jonny, Hadji, Dr. Quest,
Race, and even Bandit. Soon there is
a five-way free-for-all going on, with
rayguns blazing in all directions in the
midst of a timewarp hurricane; until
Dr. Quest orders Jonny to attack the
cat-girl, which sends everybody back
to his or her proper worlds. “Don’t
worry. I’ll explain everything,” Dr.
Quest tells Jonny, but the next panel
begins, “. . . and that’s it, son,” so the
reader never does find out what was
going on.
This Special has none of the charm
of the regular series. There the adven-
tures seem to develop naturally
because of reasonable actions by the
Quest team. Here they seem to be the
victims of a weird happenstance. The
time adventurer turns out to be Dr.
Quest’s youthful grandfather, but there
is no feeling that this relationship has
anything to do with his time machine
being drawn to the Quest Institute. It
seems to have emerged from the time-
stream there through pure coinci-
dence. There are none of the human
interest touches that are usually
present to make the Quest team such
believable and likable characters.
The only good thing about this Special
is the five-page art gallery at the end.
GRADE: FAIR – Frederick Patten
That’s the only review I can find of this series.
Boris is the guy with the mustache. Look two pictures up, in the second to last panel- Race calls the fat guy Arkady. You got the gist of it (he said three words after being bet he won’t say more than two) but it works better if you know what it’s referencing.
There’s a joke that somebody bet a celebrity known for not talking that they could get them to say at least three words, and their response was “You lose”. President Calvin Coolidge was the first one people used but it’s been told so many times that it could be anybody quiet.
But yeah, you’re probably right- they wanted to get a bit more out of it while they had time. I thought they were decent. Then again, I’m more familiar with the show.