2 out of 5

Most of the original Ambush Bug stuff is half incoherent, half laugh out loud, half groans, and half space filler.  And half good math.  But Stocking Stuffer – coming in-between the original mini and ‘Son Of…’ is the most forced out of the 80s batch, feeling like the required follow-up that it is.  Giffen and Fleming spit out 4th-wall breaking jokes truly just to achieve 40 pages, not taking advantage of the insanity to achieve some loose and ridiculous narrative but instead just doing it ’cause it’s expected.  There’s some conceptually funny gags that work on a high level – the creators purposefully ruining AB’s Christmas, Jonni DC’s perpetual frustration with the Bug for his ability to make pages and characters relevant or irrelevant when it disturbs continuity (AB jumps back to a previous page to find Cheeks… which would’ve been funnier if he had actually randomly popped up on the page) – but a lot of it falls flat because it’s just too in your face this time.  Meaning that Keith and Robert talk to us, the reader, too much, and the non-story parodies fill too much of the book, and the self-aware ‘this is a 40 page special’ is referenced too much… and so the book never quite makes it to the peak of the hill… the other AB books being the bumpy rush down the other side.

Thankfully the expansive Son Of Ambush Bug proved that the guys were capable of farting up the same stench as the original mini when, perhaps, they’re given more room and time.