4 out of 5

Man, this is some of the most awesomely Baron-y stuff I’ve read, and it was fantastic.  A mess, but fantastic.  It reminded me of the backups during the Badger years, which people often hated: Zoomtown; Clone Zone; i.e. Baron world-building and having yuks, driven by whimsy, while casually stringing along surprisingly complex and compact plots.  As with Badger (and Nexus, and whatever else), occasionally this approaches genius…  In Feud, four anthropomorphic mutant-ified animal races – Lizards (Stokers), Frogs (Sliths), Pterodactyls , and Chameleons (Grunts) – are involved in a continual push-and-pull of resources and respect, finally tippling into war when the Kites kidnap the Slith heir and frame the Stokers.  Of course, in a Mike Baron joint, that’s no reason to actually slow down and focus on said war, so we also have a distractingly slurring mystic; an inter-race sexual conspiracy; the heir turns out to be a gun-toting weapon of mass destruction; and a sub-race of land-dwelling skink-like lizards (Dust Devils) who are tired of being dismissed from their castle-dwelling brethren.  Did I mention all the self-aware humor?  And that blood and guts and sex give way to slapstick and endless wordplay?  It all seems so Marvel Epic-y at first (i.e. the ‘Max’ / Vertigo progenitor, with swearing and whatnot thrown in just to be edgy), but by first issue’s end, when it’s clear that Mike is ready to fully dig in on these characters and the world, expanding out his various plot lines… well, you know you’re in for something.

At the same time that I was marveling at Mark Nelson’s and Ray Murtaugh’s amazing artwork and colors – although Nelson’s eye-direction when breaking panel borders is occasionally cloudy – not to mention Willie Schubert’s exhaustively varied lettering (different for each species, and sometimes inter-species), I was amused by how Baron got me immersed in a story with no human proxies, or even, really, likable characters.  All of the races are definitively un-human looking, and everyone is pretty much in it for him- or herself, in endless riffing on our political and social systems.  (Fear not, though: Baron is not Pat Mills: he’s not rubbing our faces in said riffing, just having fun tearing it apart as ridiculously as possible.)

However, we also have our inevitable Baron conclusion, or rather, lack of conclusion.  Feud does resolve its war, and actually does include a rather amusing final wink, but the curtain close feels a bit rushed in comparison to the buildup.  Not that we needed another issue of just splash-paged battles or something, but some of those plot lines which were notably extended… don’t end up being too important in regards to the whole.

Oh well.  I got to see the fine line between seduction and destruction ‘tween Lizard and Frog-kind crossed and double-crossed, so that’s a good chunk of my bucket list accomplished, thanks to Mr. Baron.