Even back in the day, before I even really read comics, I had somehow heard of Scud: The Disposable Assassin. I’m not really sure how. I didn’t have any diehard comic-reading friends. I’ve never even touched a Sega Saturn, so I wouldn’t have paid attention to his game. Yet somehow I knew of the series and what the main character looked like despite the series having less than two years’ worth of issues during its initial run while being published by an independent company. That’s pretty impressive.

In all the years I’ve been into comics, I never thought about getting into the series because all I had ever heard of it was that it was jarringly unfinished. I’m a guy who enjoys closure, so that would have bugged the hell out of me. Luckily, series creator Rob Schrab finally got around to finishing the series off ten years after the fact with four additional issues.

I learned this when the Barnes and Noble I work for got in Scud: The Disposable Assassin: The Whole Shebang. That’s the funny thing about being the comic guy at the book store. You’d see something pop up in the receiving department and buy it yourself. Then when the store gets in a second copy in to replace it, you’ve already convinced a co-worker to pick it up. It’s a while before the book-buying public gets a chance to see it.

I picked up Whole Shebang on a whim. I remember hearing enough good things about the series and the art looked fun, so why not. I got through the whole book, filled with 25 and a half issues, in about a week and I had a complete blast doing so. I highly recommend it.

The comic takes place a couple decades into the future where murder is perfectly legal, at least in America. Street corners have vending machines that offer disposable assassins referred to as Scuds. Upon completing their mission and killing their target, they self-destruct. Our Scud is part of the company’s “Heart Breaker Series” and is hired to take out a nightmarish female mutant creature named Jeff. Midway into the mission, he discovers the sign on his back warning bystanders about his eventual self-destruction. Not wanting to die, he instead wounds Jeff, calls 911 and has the monster put on life-support. Scud gets to live, but he also needs to pull assassin jobs to pay for the life-support.

It’s an idea that’s definitely strong enough to laze through several years worth of issues, but it gains enough steam over the course of the initial issues that it allows itself to move in various directions. Enough subplots and characters are introduced, including Drywall, Scud’s sidekick. He resembles Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas, but covered with zippers and with a language that only those without a soul can understand. He’s an outrageous design and easily one of my favorite comic characters.

Scud is very comparable to Deadpool, but in a fortunate way, as neither can really be considered a ripoff of the other. Deadpool came first, but he wasn’t defined as a character until after Scud’s series had been around for a while. The best way I can describe this series is what it would be like if Deadpool had a comic that took place in the Nextwave: Agents of HATE “continuity”… but with more drugs involved in the writing process. After all, Deadpool has to deal with the Marvel Earth, which despite its fantastic excesses, is still meant to be a world much like ours. Scud’s world is nothing like ours. There are no legal or moral repercussions for murdering. That, other than their biology, is what separates the two.

There’s a lot of fun to be had in the book. For instance, one issue involves Scud and some mafia guys piloting a Voltron mech to fight a grass skirt-wearing Ben Franklin and his army of zombie dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, by the way, make for better zombies because they have thicker skulls and tiny brains. But I’m going to discuss a later issue here.

Issue #19 is part of an arc where Scud and his love-interest Sussudio travel on a magical horse and venture across time and space to complete certain quests. In this issue, they appear at the beach in the 80’s. Some jocks are destroying some nerds in a game of volleyball and the sudden appearance of Scud leads to him joining the nerd team. With his skills and example, the others soon gain the confidence needed to absolutely school the jocks at their own game. All the while, Sussudio hangs back and shares a joint with a stoner named Buzzard.

The nerds invite Scud and Sussudio to hang with them as the jocks hang at their frat house and plot to beat the crap out of them. Two leave, but the other says he’s going to take a leak first and then meet them there. As he takes a whiz, a mysterious man in a white mask appears and cuts the man in half.

Buzzard hooks up an old 80’s computer, a car battery and a bong together, then wires it into Scud, thereby getting him high. Elsewhere, the killer ends the lives of the other two jocks before they could get their revenge. Other than his habit of using unique sharp weapons for each victim, he also only speaks the last words of his previous victim. So he’ll kill one guy while saying, “Me take leak first,” followed by killing the other with, “Hey, buddy. You lookin’ to get killed?”

At the beach, Scud starts ranting. Whether this is his response to getting high or he just felt like talking about it, he starts railing on Bugs Bunny. Now, I don’t agree with him on the subject but damn if it isn’t an entertaining argument.

Around that time, the masked killer appears and goes on a murdering rampage. Scud comes to Sussudio’s rescue and the two pull out their pistols. Then… something unexpected happens.

These are the two final pages of the issue.

Good God did that make me laugh for a while.

Schrab only had one more issue on tap after that one and it was a very unfortunate place to stop. We all rail on Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk, but even if the series is never finished, we don’t lose all that much. Wolverine is still Wolverine and we know about how Banner and the Hulk have a better working relationship. All that’s missing is Ultimate She-Hulk and some potentially cool fight scenes. Scud, on the other hand, ended on a HUGE cliffhanger. It’s like the final episode of Soap or Duckman.

There are different reasons for why Schrab left the series in limbo, including his displeasure in the series’ direction, displeasure with the publisher, relationship troubles and most importantly his move to bigger Hollywood deals. It wasn’t until Image asked him if it would be cool to reprint the series that he finally got the inspiration to finish Scud off once and for all.

Much like the real life situation, Scud #21 takes place ten years after the cliffhanger. The final four issues finally bring closure to the series in a very satisfying way. The only letdown is that one of the major characters, Tony Tastey, only appears for one panel. He was initially used as Scud’s best buddy and got his own spin-off called La Cosa Nostroid (also ended with a cliffhanger) that was written by Dan Harmon. Schrab decided that he wanted anything relating to Tony to be concluded by Harmon himself and hopes that Image will re-release that series as well so that history could repeat itself.

I suggest the hell out of this trade, but be wary if the idea of knees with mouths screaming, “My name is Sue! How do you do?! NOW YOU GONNA DIE!” creeps you the fuck out.

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Posted in comic books, love & hate, Read Good Comics, reviews by Gavok |