There was a Ninja, some woman with green hair named Gertrude, probably my sister Vengeance, and Lord Skywalker. You know. The one that likes to snorkle.) colabed on a story! Being the Betterest at what anti-heroes do! Patreon reward for nuclearcore! · 7:44am May 27th, 2018
My quest to continue to make myself less late with patreon reward posts continues! This particular post is brought to you by Nuclearcore! Nuclearcore wanted me to share my thoughts on comic book character and galaxy class fragger, Lobo! So, let's explode some tires and start some gunfire!
You know it took me a while to find a Lobo pic this over the top? For shame, internet!
Admittedly, Lobo is a character I didn’t know a ton about until I read up on him for this blog. I mean, I’d seen him several times in the DCAU, usually irritating Superman, but I never really saw him in the comics, except for a couple quick cameos in Kingdom Come. To this end, I decided I’d read a fair amount of comics with him before putting fingers to keyboard. So, I checked out his first appearance in Omega Men #3, in which a bunch of powerful galaxy peeps almost no one cares about are harassed and ultimately outclassed by this scary clown in a silly looking orange and purple leotard, his second appearance in Justice League International Vol. 1 #s 18-21 where a much more cohesive character starts to appear, and then I decided to read two of the most popular Lobo miniseries, Lobo’s Back and Lobo Unbound.
To sum up who Lobo is in a sentence: He’s an intergalactic bounty hunter, assassin, dirty-job taker, and low-down sonuvabastich. As a side note, he seems to have a soft spot for space dolphins, ‘cause why not?
Originally one of is powers was that for every drop of blood spilled, there’d be a copy of him. A power, as I’m sure the Hindu Patheon would tell you, isnot particularly fun to deal with. This power was removed somewhere around Lobo's third stint in a comic arc (though the power has come back once or twice), probably because with how often Lobo has his blood spilled, there’d be more Lobos than other people in the galaxy before long and the only way to deal with all that is to hop franchises and ask Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet to clean up the mess or get the aforementioned Hindu Patheon for help.
The chance that this would get the whole universe destroyed is about equal with either option!
As much fun as it clearly is to have a ton of naked Lobos running around, his powers are now simply that he can regenerate, has about Superman level strength, super-human endurance, immortality (Heaven nor Hell want him), superhuman speed, and he can survive without air, food, or water. Oh, he also flies around on a space motorcycle and likes guns...
Like... A lot
If you're thinking that this is a bit much, frag you, buddy, you'd be right.
See, Lobo wasn't originally intended as a serious character, he's basically a walking parody of comic book anti-heroes, especially Wolverine. In fact, one can sense a bit of satire right from hisfirst appearance where he kills a cartoonist. Trouble is, a lot of people didn't exactly get the joke, and much like Beastie Boys’ "{You Gotta) Fight for your Right (To Party)" or Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit", Lobo ascended past the point of parody and became an exemplary version of the very thing he was designed to make fun off.
Believe it or not, this scene is not intended to be taken seriously.
To be fair to Lobo, this was bound to happen the way he was presented. The first issue of Lobo’s back is super ultra-violence, don’t cut yourself on the edge, but turned up to 11 stuff. However, following issues are some utterly insane, tap dance across as many lines of decency as possible and then stand around wondering who else is left to offend (hint: not a lot) stories.
Lobo Unbound follows in the footsteps as trying to step on as many toes with chainsaw boots as possible. It’s like if someone spent a few weeks on Tumblr, figured out what people were speaking out the most against, and then made a comic mostly out of that, but in space and staring Lobo.
And it works! At least for the most part. The Lobo comics are certainly fairly unique in that they’re willing to make the offest of off-color jokes up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start, and center.
The unserious nature of the comics also give them opportunities to make jokes that I can’t help approve of since I’ve done fairly similar stuff myself.
But think older, a pony, and much more bells in my case.
I do have a few several critiques, of course. First off, Lobo is unapologetically one note. That’s clearly something the writers are going for, which is fine, but it means you have to keep the setting and characters around the protagonist interesting because said protag isn’t likely to react differently or do anything surprising. There’s also the reliance on offensive humor which is easy to overuse as once the initial shock is overcome, the ‘joke’ isn’t really a joke anymore and one has to go further over-the-top, actually find ways to be clever beyond being offensive, or deliver something with a sense of timing. Sure, there’s the opportunity for meta-humor in having a character admit a particular gag has been overused, but that only works once as well. Same goes for the “unexpected art switch” of which Lobo Unbound did a few times. The initial joke wears off quickly and you have to accept it as a one-off or deliver other comedy inside that medium to keep it working.
Lobo has something of an advantage in that there’s always something new people are up in arms about and I’m sure he’ll be there to rip those arms off and use them as a back scratcher, but this requires a constant stream of new material to lampoon and it’s easy for a creative work to outpace this. I’d say for all its qualities (art being pretty high on the list), Lobo Unbound had this problem by the end, especially with the nod and the wink that some standards and practice guy in a suit would certainly not approve of genocide or violence committed on a woman. I mean… we get it… You’ve been sticking it to the man and his “sensibilities” for six issues at this point, no need to do a little jig about just how good a job you did.
In short, Lobo is good (un)good fun, and possibly the only way a mainstream comic book company can use usually "prohibited" material. But the character and related stories reliance on offensive and/or gross-out humor, tons of meta-comedy, and an intentional over-the-top Mary Sue on steroid means it’s hard to write an extended arc with the character without things getting a bit stale. Which probably explains why a similar, not as OP and not quite as over-the-top Merc with a Mouth has proven to be a more successful franchise.
No, you can't parody Lobo! He's already a parody! That' be like making a Space Balls parody!
On a side note, apparently, the Main Man had been killed by the “real” Lobo who looked to be a “cultured and well-educated but ruthless” super-edgy pretty-boy anti-hero type, written by Rob Liefeld, of course… Because if anyone is going to miss the fraggin’ point, it’s certainly going to be an artist who can’t draw feet and also has had multiple people take his creations and insert some actual personality into them.
The loveable or perhaps love-to-hateable “he who devours your entrails and thoroughly enjoys it” Lobo has returned, thankfully. Also, Lobo is apparently Stan Lee's favorite DC character, so he must be doing something right!
And that is that! Want to get in on the action or maybe just get a preview of stories and a better chance to make a mark on them before I hit the published page? Feel free to hit up my patreon! Again thanks toNuclearcore for what should have been LAST month’s offering!
Whoops… 
Catch ya in the comments!
Lobo has never been my favourite character, but there have absolutely been individual stories that I loved.
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), a comic like Lobo could run for loooooong time.
That's probably a good way to enjoy him. I mean, I feel he makes for good over-the-top arcs and is decent cameo character for when. say.... the Justice League need another heavy hitter and, ironically enough, a little more color in their ranks. It's harder for him to be slotted into a group in a more permanent manner or for him to carry a series (though, apparently he's doing that now). Granted, with enough material, like the existing political climate (