Nervous Meltdown
The issue opens on a 3/4ths page spread showing somewhere inside the palace. Lana exposites that the computers are going offline. Also, the Palace of Power is fusion powered; with the computers off line, the whole place will explode. Sure why not. Kevin says that "thousands will die." Who? We almost never see anyone else in the palace besides the N-Team. So who's going to die here besides them?
Cut to Mother Brain's lair, where Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo just returned from planting an almost literal computer virus into the Palace's systems. Due to the virulent nature of the phage, the two went through decontamination after releasing it, since it could affect Mother Brain. Only Eggy forgot to wipe his feet, thus causing Mother Brain to become infected.
Cut to the N-Team invading Metroid. Including Lana, who likes to feign being useful with her scepter. Hippo and Eggy try to get the N-Team's help, since Mother Brain is off-line. And now that means that Metroid will explode too.
Hey guys, maybe you shouldn't use power supplies that explode when computers go down for too long. Just sayin'.
After getting the N-Team caught up on what happened, Kevin figures that the only way to get a cure is in Mother Brain's... brain. Fortunately, it just so happens that they have a shrink-ray that just so happens to have its own power source. Plus, they have a ship that they can use to fly inside her mind and enter her thoughts, because that's totally how it works, right? The N-Team's the only one going because, well, Eggy and Hippo are screwups.
Thus, we now have Fantastic Voyage, the ass version. We spend a half a page watching them dive through Mother Brain, while Kevin attempts to wow us with his knowledge. And fails, because short-term memory is not in the Cerebellum (according to Wikipedia). Eventually, they transition from her mere brain into her mind, because that's totally how that works, right? Inside her mind, we see surreal shit: there are copies of her face (just her face) that are running away. One of them says, "If I stop they'll destroy me! I can't stop, but I must." And who are these fragments of Mother Brain's mind running from?
After they land in what they allude to being psychological muck, their ship is attacked... by the N-Team. Or rather, caricatures of the N-Team. They're large and deformed. Their version of Captain N even says the page quote. Oh, and with the N-Team are Mother Brain's henchmen, also helping in the attack.
That... that explains so much.
Then we get two panels where the N-Team start to fight their evil counterparts, and then start talking about someone off-panel. I have no idea why they spend two panels discussing something we can't see. One panel yes, for building suspense. But two? No. Usually, when you see "They've got reinforcements," you kinda expect that to lead somewhere in the next panel.
Our introduction to this new character begins with !Lana getting a stick to the face. In the next panel, we see the holder of that stick, what appears to be a teenage girl, with a red shirt that has a yellow smiley face on it. Um, OK. She tells them that what they want is in a nearby cave. Lana, deciding to be not entirely useless, asks why they should trust her. The girl agrees that they don't have a reason to, but she says that they have to. And that logic's good enough for The Game Master, so they go, leaving her to fight the !N-Team.
They get the memory they're after, then try to leave. Pit asks who she is, but fighting off 5 people plus a Pit Bull is taking its toll on the girl, so she tells them it to just leave already. And they do.
As they leave, Kevin starts thinking about what they saw, about how Mother Brain sees him. Pit is far less introspective, calling it all a lie. But Kevin wonders if there isn't some truth there. Huh.
Well enough introspection, time to get back to the fail plot. They burst through the glass and tell Eggplant Wizard that he's literally sitting on the antidote. However, King Hippo seems to have grown a brain since they left, as he realizes that they've Outlived Their Usefulness and haven't fully grown back to normal size.
In the middle of the fight, Kevin abandons the fight to try to plug the hole they put in Mother Brain's, um, brain case. He apparently grew attached to the girl who saved them, so he's trying to save her. While not even paying attention, Kevin shoots Eggy, thus saving Pit (thus keeping his useful actions streak at... 0). Meanwhile Lana managed to subdue King Hippo entirely off screen... somehow. Probably by hitting him in his open mouth, and then punching him in the gut.
They spend the last two panels talking about Mother Brain, the idea that there's one bit of good that's managed to survive all of that hate and fear, yadda yadda.
This was... not bad. Relatively speaking of course. I like the idea of it, particularly the line from !Kevin I used as the epigraph. It's such a great line, because it's a reasonable reaction to who and what Kevin is to this world. He's like Neo in The Matrix, pulling hax and using knowledge that nobody else can possibly have.* And she reacts to him like that.
But as with so many stories, it never fully develops due to the format. 10 pages really stifles this story. We don't even really get to see what Mother Brain saw the N-Team as; it's mostly wide-shots and slightly-off-panel bits. There should have been at least a half-page spread of their introduction. That would have made Kevin's bit of introspection make a lot more sense, as we could have taken the time to see him affected by it.
But again, I come from the era of decompressed comics. Even then, this just moved too fast. The Girl With the Smiley Face Shirt gets zero character development; we learn nothing about her except that she's maybe good (she might simply be the part of Mother Brain that wants to live). Because of that, Kevin's decision at the end doesn't really get the buildup and urgency it deserves. Granted, having to cram that and the dénouement into one page causes that sort of thing to happen.
This story was just crushed by the format. Great idea, but not nearly enough room to make it work.
Filler
Another three pages of filler. The first two pages are Kevin basically verbally masturbating about his l33t h4x0r powers and spouting Totally Radical dialog. But when his controller runs out of juice and he can't pull hax anymore, Samus Aran bursts through the wall Kool-Aid Man-style to save him.
Oh Yeah!
The third is an introductory page explaining the setting for the next story. They actually do this quite a lot. It talks about "Videotown," which is a city of random videogame character.
Yes, we totally couldn't have figured that out from the actual story.
A Dog's Life
We begin the story with a shot of some street that isn't from a videogame. Lana and Pit are here, grousing about how Kevin and Duke are late. The pair fall out of a warpzone, and Lana suspects something went wrong. Kevin is suddenly mute, and Pit says, "How will my hero give me orders?"
-_-
Anyway, we get a quick thought bubble from Duke. Yes, really, because Kevin and Duke switched bodies. Never seen that one before...
Lana decides to continue with the mission, considering Kevin's loss of voice to be "a simple case of Laryngitis." Um, what? Kevin was fine before you left, but he's completely mute now. And you think that's due to Laryngitis? Look, I know you're contractually obligated to be useless Lana, but could you at least think about things before you say them?
Anyway, Kevin resigns himself to being a dog, Pit says the section quote, and we all die a little inside.
Cut to something interesting: the villains. Mother Brain has invented a gun that makes people stupid. It probably works by beaming the third act of Star Wars: Revelations
directly into people's brains.
Oh I see; it's one of those episodes. In the 80's and 90's, cartoons were pushed to hit the magic number of 65 episodes, because that's what you needed for syndication (5 eps a week for 13 weeks). So lazy writers would resort to a lot of filler, and they usually used the same plots from show to show. This is a classic one: the villain comes up with a scheme that would under normal circumstances yield certain victory. However, on this particular day, some presumably hilarious misfortune befalls the hapless hero that just so happens to armor him against this particular scheme. Thus, the hero wins via wacky hijinks. Imagine Liar Liar, only half-way through, a villain appeared with a gun that only kills people who lie to him.
Displaying a shocking degree of competence, Mother Brain says that they need to send out attackers or the N-Team will think that they're being led into a trap. Which they are, because Mother Brain leaked news of their activities here.
Anyway, after some more pointless banter from Mother Brain, we cut back to the N-Team. While Lana and Pit remain clueless and useless, Kevin-in-Duke actually says of his dog, "I can't wait until he has to do something heroic." Kevin is actively wishing them into a dangerous situation that they aren't prepared to handle.
Naturally, some goons do a drive-by right then. Duke-in-Kevin runs after them and actually bites one of the goons on the leg. And yes, it looks as stupid as it sounds. Kevin-in-Duke bites one too, to stop him from getting a weapon.
After that, they reach city hall. Lana tells Kevin-in-Duke to stay to guard the warpzone, as it's their only exit strategy if things go badly. And go badly they do, as the N-Team is quickly surrounded. Naturally, Pit is the first one shot with the stupefaction beam (how would we tell the difference). Duke-in-Kevin gets hit next.
Cut to Kevin-in-Duke in an alley, when King Hippo shows up. Kevin attacks him, lures him into a flying saucer (?) sets it to leave, then escapes before it takes off, leaving Hippo trapped.
Hmm, we appear to be out of pages for a climax, so we'll just narrate what happened off-panel. Duke-in-Kevin wasn't affected by the stupefaction beam (Lana says it's because he was too smart for it. Thus proving Lana's intelligence). Well, this so shocked Mother Brain that she had an aneurysm right there and died.
No, not really, but what really happened isn't no better. Mother Brain ran off. Yes, really. She had them surrounded by her goons with guns pointed at them. And she just bugged out.
That is some seriously fucking lazy writing. Well, leaving Kevin in Duke's body would mean changing things, which is not allowed, so Kevin realizes that he can just press the literal reset button on the controller in his belt to reverse it.
That wasn't as bad as the last Duke comic, but it was up there. Down there. Fuck, this was so stupid, I can't even tell directions.
