Comic Review: Rick and Morty Presents: Rick in a Box
Overview
In Rafer Roberts’ ‘Rick in a Box,’ Rick and Morty retreat into a sci-fi box in order to recover from the life-threatening side effects of a Moranis-ing gone wrong, leaving Jerry to deal with having a giant hole in his wall during weasel season all by himself.
The longer Rick remains sequestered in the box, the more unsure the world is as to whether he still exists or not, in a global case of Schrödinger’s Cat Syndrome. In the ensuing unsure-ness, the whole planet begins healing itself, and humanity flourishes. Then Jerry accidentally uses Rick’s conditioner, leading to an army of animate hair dolls going on a murderous rampage. Out of control Rick hair consumes the globe, leaving it in ruin. Meanwhile, both Rick and Morty’s consciousness have been in the bodies of crabs the whole time.
Our Take
Within the animated realm of Rick and Morty there is no shortage of alternative universes for our characters to play around in, watch the cable offerings of, and escape to in the event of world-ending annihilation, each one just a portal jump away. But does that Rick, in all his animated glory, know anything about the ever growing flatland of alternate-alternate universes brought into existence by the good people at Oni Press? With every new comic run comes a whole new version of the Smith-Sanchez family with their own look, their own universes to explore, and their own variant covers leading to their own strange new worlds. The comic book family is clearly aware of the exploits of their animated counterparts, but it’s doesn’t work the other way round. For example, when the Summer of ‘Rick in a Box’ brings up the events of ‘Total Rickall,’ Beth writes down the number ‘3’ and tacks it onto the wall. But animated Summer doesn’t know shit about the time comic book Summer switched heads with Jerry. They are of two truly different dimensional planes, touching but never meeting. Beyond both of those dimensional planes is the realm of us, the reader, able to view both other worlds. Whatever planes lay beyond us are beyond the limits of our perception, as is the format in which we are perceived by the entities that dwell within. There’s an issue of Grant Morrison’s ‘JLA’, I believe it’s maybe #30, “Worlds Beyond” that goes into this subject in great and awesome detail. In fact, if you haven’t read Morrison’s entire run of ‘JLA,’ I highly recommend you check it out. It’s not only highly entertaining, I think it had a tremendous influence on the current prominence of the concept of the multiverse in our current pop culture landscape. Just saying.
In terms of ‘Rick in a Box’, specifically? It’s pretty good! The plot is on the chaotic-zany side of things, leaping from the weasel wall dilemma to hair planet, pairing nicely charmingly out of whack art by Zander Cannon. The panels depicting the hair planet are particularly captivating.
All the ‘weasel season’ stuff is very funny – it starts out seeming like a Jerry-specific problem, but it turns out this is basically the ‘weasel season’ universe. Being thrust into the middle of Rick and Morty trying to see giant ants after getting all worked up over Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, I didn’t love the Greek and Italian stereotype stuff. All three variant covers are great, but Rafer Robert’s R Crumb inspired cover is extra-great.
Do we know if Hulu will be the only entity to have the dub, or if it will be on other platforms, too? The show in general is definitely going to be on multiple platforms.