Rick And Morty Verses Dungeons & Dragons II: Painscape #1 - IDW Publishing

RICK AND MORTY VERSES DUNGEONS & DRAGONS II: PAINSCAPE No. 1, August 2019

Offering “a new mini-series issue of Dungeons & Dragons with Rick and Morty”, Jim Zub’s narrative for this twenty-two page periodical certainly demonstrates the “fan favourite dice dependent” author’s love of all things six-sided. Indeed, the Canadian author’s depiction of a world which entirely revolves around everybody’s love for Dave Arneson’s co-creation is incredibly enticing, especially when it contains twenty-four seven televised broadcasts of live games, thirty-seven shop-filled Hobby Malls dealing exclusively with the fantasy role-playing game, and a limited, life-size reproduction of the “Aegis-Fang Warhammer from the Crystal Shard by R.A. Salvatore.”

Sadly however, such an intriguing storyline soon starts to arguably disappoint once Sanchez deduces that the planet has become infected by a “D20 Dependence Outbreak” devised by the barking-mad scientist’s first two characters for the tabletop game. Admittedly, it’s momentarily quite cool to explore Rick’s “unfinished masterpiece” Borden and question the medieval settlement's various walking quest prompts. But such a fascinating campaign setting is regrettably soon replaced by Bardrick and Sorcerick kidnapping the dysfunctional protagonists and using a portal gun to enter our own dimension from the Painscape.

In addition, whilst such Smith-family focused shenanigans also provide this comic with some laugh-out-loud moments, such as when Morty giggles hysterically at his grandfather’s embarrassing choice of names for his playing pieces, nothing is penned explaining just how the entire Earth became contaminated by “a virulent, unstoppable need to play Dungeons & Dragons” in the first place, nor why Rick is able to simply teleport himself to its source without any difficulty whatsoever; “I don’t wanna keep saying the same s**t, but I still have no idea what’s going on.”

Fortunately, what this book’s plot debatably lacks in exposition it does make up for with solid storyboarding by Troy Little. The Prince Edward Island-born cartoonist genuinely seems able to capture all the nuances of the animated sitcom’s considerably-sized cast, and pencils a gobsmackingly good cliff-hanger when Sanchez realises he’s been dispatched to the tomb of the demi-lich Acererak in order to experience Dungeon Magazine’s “third greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time” first-hand - Gary Gygax’s “Tomb of Horrors”.

Written by: Jim Zub, Illustrated by: Troy Little, and Colored by: Leonardo Ito