RECOMMENDED: "Wacky Raceland" (Pontac & Manco)

- by Ninja Ross, 21 September 2016

DC has been putting a lot of focus on resurrecting classic Hanna-Barbera properties lately. Most notably, we have "Scooby Apocalypse" and "The Flintstones", both of which have received a lot of praise for their different takes on the source material. For example, "The Flintstones" has been especially well received, thanks in large part to how it tackles political issues. While Scooby Apocalypse's reviews have been slightly more mixed, critics have called it vibrant and imaginative.

But fuck all of that, there's a Wacky Races comic! Like Scooby Doo and The Flintstones, Wacky Races has received the gritty reboot treatment. While it worked to some degree with the other books, "Wacky Raceland" seems to have it right with its first three issues.

Cover to issue #2, with Dick in the center. Click to enlarge.

As the world ends, a mysterious disembodied voice known as “The Announcer” collects several people and infuses their vehicles of choice with an A.I, bringing them to life with their own personalities. The drivers and their vehicles are then forced to race through hostile environments, avoiding giant monsters, flesh eating nanites and fellow racers in order to gain entry to “Utopia,” where the winner can live in peace and regain what they lost when the world ended.
 
It's as if George Miller directed an episode of "Wacky Races", which sounds like one of the coolest ideas in the world.
 
But it's not just a cool idea, it's also very well executed by writer Ken Pontac and artist Leonardo Manco.

Pontac has taken the familiar characters of Wacky Races and given them new, darker backgrounds and personalities. He's changed things up enough that the characters feel fresh and new, but there's enough familiarity and doesn't stray too far from the source material.
 
Wacky Races had a lot of characters so it's hard to give everyone a chance to shine in just the first three issues, but Pontac is focusing on the obvious characters here: Dick Dastardly and Penelope Pitstop. Even in the original cartoons, these two had more going on than Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth or Pat Pending. What did those guys even do, really? They just mess around and occasionally place kind of high on the leaderboard.

​But I always rooted for Dick Dastardly and Muttley while watching the cartoons, despite knowing he'd never win. Dastardly had swagger! A sense of style! A chuckling dog! An excuse to say “Dick”! And Penelope Pitstop was always cool under pressure. No complex booby trap was going to slow her down or ruin her make-up. She's a lady of class and style.

Penelope Pitstop and The Announcer.

Pontac has given us two protagonists worth reading. Penelope is tough and doesn't take shit from anyone. Within the first few pages, she's seen slamming back drinks and smacking folk around. She only gets cooler from there as she races through the tracks, taking on giant sand centipedes.
 
Dick's no longer a bumbling Nazi, but rather a grumpy anti-hero. While he's still cowardly and mean, his back story goes a long way to explaining while he's so ruthless and desperate to win.
 
Only a few back stories have been revealed so far, but they're all about as tragic as you'd expect. Penelope and Dick are still somewhat shrouded in mystery, with bits of their histories revealed as the story goes on, but Lazy Luke and Blubber Bear get some spotlight in a backup story at the end of issue 1. It's tragic. Utterly tragic. Wacky Races has never been so miserable and engaging.
 
But all of the other supporting characters and their respective vehicles are given a lot of attention. The Ant Hill Mob appear to be mutated clones of some sort, Pat Pending is a slightly psychopathic mad scientist and Red Baron is a full on Nazi. But out of all the changes made, Peter Perfect, one of the coolest in the cartoon, remains relatively unchanged. He's still the naïve good guy lacking in brains, which is actually quite nice to see. He's not in it much at the moment, but when he does show up he adds a bit of levity to the situation.

Peter Perfect.

All of the characters are brought to life by Manco, with his gritty style and solid line work. Manco's work on Hellblazer was outstanding for a long time, before he seemed to lean towards a more simplistic yet messy style. In Wacky Racelands, he seems to have struck a perfect balance in styles, making this a genuinely gorgeous book with a grim tone that perfectly suits Pontac's script.
 
Character and vehicle designs is where Manco excels here. While his backgrounds and monsters are fabulous and evil looking, it's nothing compared to seeing things go splat on the cars in this book. And each issue has a splash page full of action, with handy labels next to each vehicle so we're reminded who's who. Not that it's needed, since they're all unique enough, but it's a grand sight! Lots of cool stuff on show in these splash pages.
​

The Ant Hill Gang boys.

But it's difficult not to compare Wacky Racelands to Mad Max, especially when Big Gruesome, of the Gruesome Twosome, looks almost exactly like Humungus from Road Warrior.
 
But that's all clearly intentional; Wacky Racelands appears to be paying homage to both its source material and the Mad Max movies, which appears to be working well for the book. Pontac and Manco have started a fun yet moody series that doesn't feel too miserable and doesn't get too full of itself or too self-referential. The real hook of this comic is how simple it is, really. Cool cars and violence. You don't need much more than that in life. Besides food, water, etc. Food, water, shelter, cars and violence. Essential living.


Is Wacky Raceland the best DC title out now? Let us know in the comments!

Tagged: comics, Reviews, RECOMMENDED.

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