The third and final
Bullwinkle and Rocky collection from IDW titled
Mastermind Moose is disappointing in a number of ways. There are four issues of the Gold Key series but the talent used (and unidentified) is substantially less capable than what had show up before. the artwork is flat and lifeless though possessed at times with a charming sense of design. But the sense of movement is all but lost.
Lost too is the smarmy sense of humor which enlivens the show itself. The comic from the beginning was behind the eightball when it came to such matters without the delight of the character voices, but did evoke the structure and overall feel. These later comics don't with the joke falling flat and some of the characters behaving wildly off model. Rocky in particular seems out of sorts all the time and in fact in a number of stories is dispensed with quickly making those stories solo outings for the more famous Moose. Without that sense of comradeship there's a key element of the series absent.
The other features too feel off. Dudly Do-Right is in every issue and on every cover and only in fits and starts do we get the Dudley of the cartoon. Snidely Whiplash and Nell and Inspector Fenwick all fall short of their cartoon personas in some way. Snidely comes in with the best showing.
And while they don't make the covers of any of these issues Mr. Peabody and Sherman do show up in all of them but again the formatting feels off model. Sherman is more troublesome that in the cartoons and in one episode seems to travel through time on his own.
But easily the greatest disappoint is that IDW saw fit to reprint issue twelve of the series which showcases three stories IDW had already reprinted in the first of the three volumes in their reprint series. I expect more from this team and this had the rub of a tiny rip-off. The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show was and is a delight and making it into a comic must be hard. We'll get a look at how younger talent handles the challenge next week.
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