3 out of 5

The end of the ongoing series, for now at least.

Interestingly, #44 is what ended up breaking me – convincing me to reconsider whether I wanted to keep buying this book or not – so… fortunate (?) that it’s the last of this volume.

#42 is the last ‘serious’ book of the collection, assumedly leading in to ‘Occasion of Revenge.’  This isn’t a bad take on the darker side of the Goon world, as Powell uses the setup – the Zombie Priest sending several omens Goon’s way to warn him of the upcoming war with the Priest’s clan – for some Goon-esque gags like zombies stuffed with dynamite and talking mannequins and giant bugs that Goon gets to smash in some well-timed panels – though the Priest’s justification of making his warnings dangerous “just because we’re going to have a common enemy doesn’t mean I don’t want you dead” reeks of Powell’s inability to strongly tie plot point A to plot point B.  And some of the gutter humor lacks the zany charm of yore… but this has sorta been the case since Satan’s Sodomy Baby.  Also, oddly, the last panel – which is capped by a gloomy shooting – is atypically poorly framed by Eric, diminishing the final ‘bang’ to some tiny letters which… have no impact.  Also features part 2 of the rather weak Mark Buckingham drawn backup.

#43 feels like classic Goon: random jokes, random monsters.  Features a future Billy the Kid and Jeffrey, which is an odd all-of-a-sudden-these-worlds-unite crossover, but it works, because they both deal with creepies after all.  Still, it’s not an A+ issue – that humor still doesn’t feel as natural as it once did – but had we stuck with these isolated tales that didn’t reach into the real world for their satire, that would’ve been fine by me.

And #44 is a fitting goodbye, I suppose, since it’s all Lagarto all the time, but I had such trouble getting into this since Powell went almost full Spanish with it.  I think that’s a potentially funny gag, and you can certainly follow the story on the whole without a translation, but there are too many panels that don’t matter over all but are still in Spanish… suggesting that a translation would make it worth a giggle, but as is, your eyes just glaze over.  Contrast this with Lagarto’s original appearances, where you could just laugh at his outlandish dialogue because the panels themselves looked funny… and something something summary of how things have changed over the years.  And again with the real-world people popping up for some gags.  Funny, I guess, but not really escapist humor.

The final three issues are a good attempt at showcasing the various narrative styles Goon has used over the years, but they’re not prime examples of any of the variations.