3 out of 5

Getting closer, but still stunted overall.  ‘Son of…’ actually manages to hold on to a sense of plotting for about half its run, Giffen flexing some creativity muscles to create ‘The Interferer,’ a ‘cosmic buttinsky’ who’s going around rewriting the DC Universe to match his idea of what’s best and thereby giving Giffen and Fleming in-story liberty to lampoon more comic conventions.  Jonni DC gets rewritten as a floozy, Bug is recast as the space-defender ‘Amber Butane’, and Cheeks gets written into a war book.  Meanwhile, Argh!Yhle! is once more plotting revenge upon the Bug for his perceived sleight upon Irwin Schwab’s discovery of the Ambush suit (and irradiated sock).  It’s surprisingly focused without sacrificing the anarchic feel of Buggy, since the Interferer keeps interfering and socks keep trying to blow up the bug.  But this can only be held together for so long before our writer/creator/plotter/dialoguers slip back into the rampant riff format that defined Stocking Stuffer and the middle two issues of the first Ambush mini.  Our plot-lines are somewhat abandoned for a court case where Ambush is put on trial for crimes against DC; a funny concept in itself, but not being anchored to what was built into the prior issues, starts dropping seeds of doubt… which flourish when Interferer’s is written away with a one page cough and Argh!’s bit… gets a more appropriate sendoff, but renders his inclusion in the series questionable.

Which you could say is just how Ambush Bug works: throw it in the pot, mix it up and plot it until it runs out of steam, but again, ‘Son of’ is sort of a high/low experience, neither settling for the issue-by-issue stance of the ’85 series or actually committing to keeping up a semblance of story.

The book ends on a nigh-awesome meta note, though, a comedic approach to Morrison’s 4th wall antics, as Ambush Bug is sentenced to exile from the DC Universe, and thus is ‘drawn’ out as the images flip to an ending broadcast image (and text) of an American Flag with the anthem playing.

Giffen’s take on the world has been pretty damn perfected by this point, the high contrast shadows and odd angles all part of a whirling miasma of artistic tributes and panel puns, the many 12-panel pages abstracted almost to rebus levels but totally readable thanks to the artist’s skill.

Delivers all of the yuks of ‘Ambush Bug’ with the addition of some promise of, one day, an actual story.