Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, gay, quantum and woody, valiant

Touching Junk – Quantum And Woody #2

So Valiant Entertainment brought back Quantum And Woody last month.

A critical darling of a comic book, it never quite hit the sales heights, but for superhero comics in the nineties, the series by Priest and MD Bright it was a real treat. Incredibly witty, with an addictively entertaining buddy-superhero dynamic, it created the classic "trapped room" sitcom by having two characters with a shared history of antagonism who were forced to live together by the nature of their powers. Yin and yang, black and white, army and crime, privileged and disadvantaged, sensible and irrational, paper smart and street smart, it was a joy.

It was a hard achievement to match, and issue one fell short. It didn't quite have the spark of absolute nonsense from Woody clashing with the prim and proper Quantum, sometimes sexual, often racial, generally inappropriate and only working in the context of two people who knew each other really well. The first issue, rebooting the comic with a new creative team wasn't a bad comic. It was a pretty good comic. But it was lacking.

The second issue… is much more like it. We open with the newly transformed pair, naked, being held at gunpoint by police. And what is Woody's reaction? Calm, sensible, aware of the danger to him and his now-stepbrother? No.
And that's far closer to the Woody we know.

Mocking, ridiculous, panicked, but also, it seems to be working. And perfect for kicking off Quantum's anger.There's a certain level of acceptable racism between friends, people who've grown up with each other, that the original exploited to the full, something missing from the first issue, but here in abundance.

Such is the strength of character here that it just feels natural, inoffensive and friendly, and that's credit to the setup that Priest and Bright came up with and it's one that the current team wisely stuck to, possibly even improving it my making their father the same person, rather than scientific colleagues. This Quantum and Woody didn't just knock around the neighbourhood trying to see into the bathroom window of the girl next door, they grew up together. Which gives them even more scope for banter.

Which also means…

When penises touch. The original comic played fast and free with the bromance of the central characters, ever at odds, but continually perceived by others in different ways. The "we're not a couple" that's repeated on BBC's Sherlock was a catchphrase of the original series. We haven't got there yet, and we're still issues away from the return of the goat, but this is a Quantum And Woody in a world where to be gay is less of an insult and more of an assumption than it was in the early nineties.

Though , you know, that other aspect still comes up.

That's one of the great things about Quantum And Woody, they are very rarely right about anything. Their plans will not go as expected, their aims are constantly defeated by their own bickering and they will fall out like an old married couple. But, like an old married couple, they just have to stay together, not for the sake of the kids, but for their own bodily cohesion.

So that's race and sex dealt with, anything else before we go?

Ah yes, the stereotyped disabled villain is taken to a whole new level here. There's no justification from the narrative or the characters here, save that they've had one hell of a day.

The comic plays with what we consider acceptable behaviour and speech, but addressing teen rather than nineties sensibilities. As a result, it's unlikely to "noogie" out quite as much as the original. But there's a whole world of other issues and aspects to tackle that might be a little more topical, But in whatever shape they come, Quantum and Woody are back. If you dropped the first issue because it wasn't quite there, issue two is a lot, lot closer. I wasn't as minded to pick up issue 2. I will be all over issue 3.

Quantum And Woody #2 by James Asmus and Tom Fowler was published by Valiant Entertainment last week.

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