A Blast From the Past: GG:Warrior #40

As you can see, I've been snooping around in my long boxes again. And I have to admit that this particular episode from Guy Gardner: Warrior is one of my absolute favorites. Written by Beau Smith of course, and for a change, the art is by Aaron Lopresti, who does a bang-up job.

It is Christmas, and the day after the mind-blowing Christmas Eve Bash that they threw at Warriors last issue. That's the one where Martika shows up and then ditches Guy, the Spectre reunites him with the spirit of his dead father, so that they can have a little closure, Ice's mother, Queen Olaff shows up and gives him that lovely little ice statue of he and Ice, and John Constantine spikes the eggnog, so Fire ends up pretty well swacked. She and Guy actually decide that they should stop fighting and make up, they kiss under the mistletoe...

...and then we leap into the first page of this book. Guy's in bed, rolls over, and...surprise! There is Fire's boot! Apparently, fueled by booze and nostalgia, he and Fire spent the night rutting like weasels. Guy goes stumbling downstairs, to find the rest of his crew having breakfast, and in general a good laugh at his expense. Joey keeps checking him for burn marks, while Veronna is getting pretty snippy that he's doing the horizontal mambo with another woman.

And then, the voice of doom from the doorway. There is a lovely page of all of their reactions that I would love to include, but I don't have the scans for. Just read it, ok? Guy gets this look of combined horror and resignation that is depicted quite beautifully. And who is it, who is creating such terror in the eyes of the beholders? A new supervillain, or hideous monster from the depths?

No...it's his mom. All 200 pounds of red-haired fury in the flesh. Turns out that she's a bit miffed at him for accidentally destroying her house, not to mention getting her neighbor murdered and stuffed in her fridge, courtesy of Major Force. The icing on the cake is that Force ALSO stuffed her beloved kitty into the freezer. She yells at Buck Wargo to pay off the cab, and for Desmond to get her luggage, and for Rita to bring her a drink, "...and I DON'T mean soda pop!" She also informs Guy that she's moving in.

He is instantly reduced to the status of a five-year old, and it is hilarious. He's trying to reason with her, but it obviously isn't going to do any good. Mr. Fancy-Pants Super Hero indeed! Poor Guy just can't believe that this is happening to him, while Buck, not being a complete fool, immediately finds other business to attend to.

Turns out that a whole lot of interesting stuff has just been delivered, including one mysterious cannister from Zaire. Buck doesn't know what's in it yet, but figures it'll keep. But it turns out that someone else is also interested in that particular cannister, and it turns out to be none other than Gorilla Grodd, who sends in his ape lackeys to retrieve the cannister...or else. They succeed in infiltrating Warriors, grab the cannister and massacre a whole passel of security guards, although one of them is able to hit the alarm.

The resultant sirens wake up Guy, whose first thought is that Mom must have found the kitchen. He does manage to pull it together however, and they all assemble up on the roof, whlie Zinda flies them away in the helicopter. Buck always has tracking sensors installed in all of his shipping crates,which is clever of him, and they are able to track the missing canister to the Empire State Building, which I also find hilarious, considering we are talking about apes here.

Grodd wants the cannister because it holds the Totem of Blowtok, which will apparently somehow give him the power to spike the water system of Gorilla City and bend everyone's mind to his own evil will. Frankly I don't even care what his motivation is, I just want to have a fight with talking gorillas. By now, back in the helicopter, they've more or less figured out that the stolen cannister was from Gorilla City, and Guy points out that he was in the JLA long enough to know that they are dealing with the "Idi Amin of the Ape World...Gorilla Grodd!"

They arrive at the Empire State Building, only to discover that the apes have killed off all the tourists. This leads to one of my favorite quotes ever.

"Then I guess it's time to start spankin' some monkeys."

Yes Guy, it is MORE than time! There follows a just gorgeous two-page spread of all of them doing just that, with not dialogue, but a couple of thought boxes as Guy is musing on life in general.

"In a matter of seconds, I felt like I had been shoved into the worst Big Ape B-Movie ever made. The only things missin' were Charlton Heston, Fay wray and them stinkin' flyin' monkeys from the Wizard of Oz."

Guess what show up next? At which Guy moans that he's got to stop thinking out loud.

There are some lovely fight scenes and some equally lovely witty banter from all involved. Of course Guy finds Grodd, and they start in. Firstly, Guy keeps calling him Magilla, and then taunts him about losing to Catwoman. Grodd insists that it isn't his fault, it was due to the failure of lesser beings, and so on and so forth. He tries to take over Guy's mind, but Veronna realizes it from their shared mind link, and they have a tender mental moment. Gosh,but I miss Veronna!

So, Guy punches out Grodd and hauls him out, where he makes him stop the rest of his ape army. Unfortunately, his nasty son Drogg points out that they are still holding all the cards, since they've wired one of the apes full of explosives, and that they'll set him off, if they aren't allowed to leave...WITH the cannister they stole. The good guys can't chance the lives of all the people in the building, and reluctantly let them go, while Drogg leaves the control device for the explosives on the ground behind them, as they all take off in their gorilla ship. Immediately of course, they find that they've been double-crossed, the control device doesn't work, and the explosive Ape is just about to Blow!

Guy grabs the ticking Ape, and yelling that Grodd forgot something, he THROWS it at the departing ship, where it explodes with a very resounding KA-THOOM!! Guy just hates it when Apes lie to you.

So, they all pile back into the helicopter and Zinda flies them back to Warriors, where Guy remembers just who is waiting for him.

I really do miss Buck and Joey, Rita, Desmond and Veronna. They were such well-fleshed out characters, and we haven't seen them since DC cancelled GG:Warrior. It's a darned shame, and I keep hoping that they are lurking somewhere in the DC universe.