4 out of 5

It’s over-the-top, which is exactly what it should be.

The Metalocalypse concept wore thin after a season and a half or so, causing the creators to try to Venture Bros. the storyline, which only exposed that their writing isn’t quite as sharp as the guys’ working on VB.  Goon had, at this point, been stuck in a weird limbo of either being too purposefully Goonish (Powell pleasing his building fanbase) or too melodramatic.  By announcing at the start of this one-shot that nothing inside is canon (in Toki-speak hopefully provided by Small), it freed the story up to just be as bonkers as it wants to be, which was a key element of the initial version of both character’s worlds.  This isn’t just an Elseworlds dabbling, where Superman still emerges as the good guy: Franky explodes after doing too much cocaine, and Goon gives Murderface a chop to the head with an axe.  And Roxxo dies.  All of it fantastically bloody.  There story is also wittily stupid: Dethklok is transported to Goonland when an ancient ritual to turn Murderface into a killer is interrupted, and Roxxo the Clown – who has been programmed to kill Dethklok upon hearing the entirely random phrase ‘Peaches Valentine’ – gets, uh, deactivated, and convinced he’s died, goes on a drug binge.  The art mash-up – Metalocaplyse characters are drawn simplified, like their cartoon counterparts, with only one layer of shading, vs. Goon characters / settings who / which are given the full Powell watercolor treatment – is a little disconcerting at first, but it ends up being a fun way of drawing a clear divide between the worlds and adds to the herky jerky vibe of the book.

Swissgard scores a g-milf gypsy in Momma Norton, catches an STD.  Worth it.

To be fair, I thought this book was shite when I first read it.  Going back to it without expectations – and really appreciating that non-canon front page warning, which I zipped by on my first read –  Powell pulled the same magic he did with the Hellboy crossover, figuring out the right tone to make the worlds meet (and by meet I mean clash, which they would).