2 out of 5

The unfortunately sloppy editing and over-written dialogue found in volume 1 of Freaks & Gods has improved for volume 2 – there are still typos but significantly less, and it’s still wordy as hell, with poor reading order, but, again, less flagrantly than before – but this concept of mixing public domain characters with creator Chris Dreier’s trio of Quantum Leap-ing pulp heroes goes overboard into indulgence. Issues are just an endless stream of nods to past issues (both classic and from Freaks & Gods itself…) and we get neither satisfying standalone stories, as they’re so cluttered, or any real significant advancement in some larger F&G lore.

The premise is the same: werewolf Barghest, science adventurer Steve-Steph, and living mummy god Atum have gotten stuck in the endless path of the “Dark Tunnel,” a device which ports them from world to world to right some wrong, then shuffles them on their way. Issue #1 has a fun idea of putting the three into a cartoon world, but he indulgence here is self-referential: the cartoon characters are the stars of another Dreier book, and if the dialogue / narration woes kind of work as Golden Age pastiche, they do not work for punny humor. Artist Giuseppe D’Elia’s stylistic flexibility is cool, D’Elia also doesn’t paticularly support the joke timing too well. It’s just a tonally confused issue, though props on the self promotion.

Issue #2 again has a good spin, splitting up our heroes upon dimension hopping to handle three different sides of a problem – a sunken submarine, plagued by various maladies internal and external – but this is the issue where the public domain stuff gets out of hand, and no scene in the story is allowed to get much steam before some other reference happens or the next scene jumps in.

Some of the lore that’s stuffed in here has promise, though “stuffed” feels operative – its inclusion can be clunky – and cartoon stuff aside, D’Elia’s work remains a compelling combo of the artist’s own weighty ticks and some Kirby notes, with Dreier’s colors really making the pages pop. The visuals help keep things readable, even when the cluttered writing style gets in its own way.