Written by: Jeff Lemire
Art by: Dustin Nguyen
Publisher: Image Comics
This review will probably be the shortest I’ll ever do in my time writing for We The Nerdy (boy was I wrong) but that’s because there’s so little to talk about here. Take a look at the cover, that’s what you get. This issue is all about Bandit, the lovable robot dog that’s approximately 10^9 times better than Sony’s old Aibo dogs.
I do like the idea of taking a whole issue to flesh out some of the characters that we don’t spend all that time getting to know during the main course of the plot. Done right it can not only just flesh out one character but lead the reader to assume that the rest of the cast have similar depth, making the whole crew more memorable and believable. The previous two issues have done this superbly with Tim-22 and Captain Telsa. Which leads me to question why Bandit was chosen. I mean sure dogs are cute, but why not focus on Driller’s past? Fans love him (or at least I do) and I imagine there’s a good story behind his hatred for humanity. Even the random UGC officer that’s been around since issue 2 (had to look up his name- Tullis) would be a better candidate for such an exploration.
So what’s Bandit’s story consist of? Well if you hated the Futurama episode ‘Jurassic Bark’ then this might not be the issue for you and the gaping hole you have where your heart should be. Apart from, say four pages, the book follows Bandit’s activities from the evacuation of the mining colony Andy and Tim-21 are from to Tim’s reawakening.
Bandit spends most of his time walking around dilapidated halls filled with dead miners and waiting by Tim’s bed. Nothing Bandit does really builds his character or overly gives him any more personality than the aforementioned Aibo, we don’t feel sad for him because we haven’t really connected to him, he’s just like a machine and you know that Tim does eventually wake up. Contrasting this character with Jurassic Bark’s dog, Seymour, Bandit is a very bland and boring dog. You like Seymour because he’s unique, sings ‘Walking on Sunshine’, is the punchline to some gags and most importantly, we see what he means to Fry. Bandit on the other hand has just sort of been in the background, yapping, with people occasionally telling him to shut up.
That’s the character out of the way let’s go on to the emotion of the character’s conflict. Jurassic Bark shows us a montage of time progressing in leaps with Seymour and his surroundings getting older and older, waiting for Fry to return from his deliver to the cryogenics lab, until he rests his head down one last time. It’s a really touching scene as we see the life Fry left behind move on without him, a reminder that everyone he knew had passed on after leading their own lives and that although he may think no one would care for his disappearance, it shows that he was missed. Bandit however just strolls around for a bit, chases a rat (don’t know how that survived) and accidentally wakes up Tim. It’s worsened by the fact that the 10 years is shown to progress in three panels, making it look like Bandit just powered down for a while. Plus I’d like to reiterate how badly any sympathy felt for Bandit is undercut with the knowledge that Tim does eventually wake up, with Seymour it was his entire life (let’s ignore Bender’s Big Score).
While character exploration and plot development left me feeling disappointed it’s nice to know that Dustin Nguyen always delivers the goods with his masterful watercolor techniques. I have raised qualms before about how everything looks too clean and those are more than settled here with Dustin showing off some really grimy environments in the run-down mining facility. If I didn’t know better I’d even stipulate that he just watered down some bile to get that nice, dirty texture that can be sen smeared on the walls. His ability to convey a sense of isolation in detailed shots is also second to none, with long empty corridors, cavernous chambers and breath-taking vistas of the void, decorated with greatly emaciated corpses of those too slow to escape.
All in all, unless you love little more than looking at Nguyen’s panels (and boy do I!) then I’d suggest you maybe don’t hope for the great insight we saw the last two issues. That goes for both those of you who are long-time readers and those just starting, as the issue only moves the plot in the last four pages, which if you want is just below, and the issue doesn’t really accomplish its objective of endearing Bandit to us. Compared to the exploration we see in other characters throughout this series who have had less panels devoted to them (looking at you Tim-22) this just doesn’t measure up.
(SPOILER!!! Andy found out where Tim-21 is through sciencing Bandit)
