Comic Review: Rick and Morty #42

The largest story to come out of the Rick and Morty comic books yet reach its epic conclusion.

Overview:

The last issue saw Rick and Morty end in a desperate struggle for their lives.  The nefarious Party Dog had assembled a team of villains desperate to exact their revenge on the duo, the Rick Revenge Squad.  With the rest of the family caught in the crossfire, there was seemingly no escape for our heroes.  Well, this issue is all about how Rick and Morty get out of yet another desperate situation.  It all culminates with a final showdown against Party Dog himself.

In the second segment of ‘Adventures in Public Domain,’ Rick and Morty continue their quest of assembling characters and monsters that carry no copyright laws.  They travel via portal gun in search of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes.  Unfortunately, their adventure is disrupted by a variety of Lovecraftian monsters, including a mutant version of Holmes himself.

Our Take:

This issue was the culmination of many storylines that have appeared in the Rick and Morty comic books over the years.  Many of the most recent issues had been leading to this very conclusion.  The writers had assembled a team of villains just to put Rick and Morty through the ringer, the most dangerous situation the pair have been in yet.  This story had all the pieces lined up for an epic conclusion, and it was all very… underwhelming.

The concept of bringing in past storylines and villains was fascinating.  It worked on many levels.  It took what Rick and Morty do best, parodying our favourite pop culture references and adapted it to the comic form.  They had assembled a team of past villains as we would read in classic Spider-Man or Batman comics and put our heroes in the middle of the mud.  Conceptually this is precisely the steps that a Rick and Morty comic should be taking, making references that are congruent to the media.  However, in doing so, the last couple of issues failed to keep in line with some other relevant factors.  The story itself was rushed, and it lacked much of the necessary humour.

I don’t have much to say about the issue itself, because, in all honesty, not much happened.  With everyone left in a desperate fight for survival at the end of the last issue, this book should have been an exciting action piece.  Unfortunately, this epic battle was solved more by situational happenstance, in place of humorous problem-solving.  I understand that there are limitations when it comes to the number of pages and amount of dialogue; however, this did not feel like a true Rick and Morty comic, more of a comic that happened to take place in the Rick and Morty multiverse.  To be true to the characters, and to comic books themselves, the heroes should have had to come up with creative solutions to their dilemma in place of lucking out and having everything just play out.  I suppose I just wish that there was more or a higher caliber of humour.

The additional story, ‘Adventures in Public Domain’ was able to provide the jokes and witty dialogue that you would expect from Rick and Morty.  This is essentially what it is all about, having these characters travel to parallel dimensions and face situations in there own comical way.  While I feel like I don’t understand H.P. Lovecraft enough to catch the references used in this issue, I can appreciate what they are doing.  It makes me excited to see where this whole story is going, with three more installments to come of the five-part series.

This issue was what it was, and I think they might have gotten a little ahead of themselves with trying to wrap this main storyline up.  It has felt a little rushed over the last couple of books, and it could have used some more development.  I am still optimistic about the series going forward, and I am certain there are many great plots to come our way.  If they stick to doing more one-shot stories for a little while, I will not be disappointed.