The Good
Shorty, who died a couple issues back, finds himself in the afterlife.Baldly battles some giant talking apes and has to pass a test after a large feast.
For those who have never read or heard of this book, SKULLKICKERS is a fantasy meets medieval times meets steampunk book about a dwarf and a tall, bald man going on adventures. It's also incredibly funny, well written, and beautifully drawn. That's as basic as I can break it down.
As always, this book is more than just humorous. It's laugh out loud hilarious. Not only is the dialogue and the situations these characters are in funny, but it's little things like instead of a sound word like "BOFF!" pop up, you'll see "high quality ape teamwork" pop up instead. It's bizarre and amazing. That's been one of my favorite things about this series. It's always amusing, and issue after issue, it continues to keep being humorous. It's the funniest book on the shelves. Give writer Jim Zub an award for funniest book or make said award up and give it to him.
The art team on this issue (and really the series) is fantastic: Edwin Huang (pencils and inks), Kevin Raganit (inks), Misty Coasts (colors) and Ross A. Campbell (colors). The art has a very animated style that is completely complimentary to the writing and the story.
This team does a great job with establishing shots as well. In once scene, a red, muscular, demon-esque humanoid stands in front of a gigantic gate, in a cavern, as he looks at a long list. It's pieced together wonderfully and tells the whole story of the scene. The final page of the issue has that same feeling as it's revealed what Baldy will have to go up against.
Shorty has a name now, unless they said it between issues 13-18, and I missed it.
The Bad
This issue is really not new reader friendly. We're right in the middle of one long, on-going story line, so your best bet to really enjoy this book is simply to start at issue #1. This is one of those books where even though we're 20 issues deep into the story, it's well worth it to pick up the previous 19.
However, while this issue says #1 on the cover, it's actually #20 of the series. As you can probably tell, they're poking fun at all the rebooting going around. Issue #19 is actually called Uncanny Skullkickers. It's pretty funny, but pretty confusing to new readers.
The Verdict
Admittedly, I haven't been reading this book as much as I should. I fell off the wagon around issue #12. Luckily/Sadly, the scent of #1 issues got me interested (I was obviously a 90s comic book reader), and I jumped back on board to find that nothing has changed, in a good way. SKULLKICKERS is still a fantastic book that's incredibly funny. I had no real problem jumping back on (at issue #19), and I felt right back at home.
While the creative team here is amazing, and the story is a ton of fun, this book really isn't new reader friendly, especially with the confusing change in names for the volumes. While this is issue #20 of SKULLKICKERS, it's actually labeled as SAVAGE SKULLKICKERS #1, so new readers may get a tad confused.
Overall, I love this book and you will too. I highly recommend it.
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