Rick And Morty: Crisis On C-137 #1 - Oni Press

RICK AND MORTY: CRISIS ON C-137 No. 1, August 2022

Somewhat misleading with the solicitation pitch that its just “up to Rick, Morty and Noob Noob to defend the galaxy against a threat beyond time”, Stephanie Phillips’ storyline for this twenty-two-page periodical probably pleased many within its audience who were long-term fans of Dan Harmon’s “animated science-fiction sitcom”. But whilst the comic rather enjoyably depicts the galaxy-spanning exploits of Supernova, the Vindicator’s short-lived janitor and even the universe-travelling small white dog known as Snuffles, a few of this book’s plot threads arguably seem to have been thrown into the mix simply to help pad the story out until it reached the required publication length.

Foremost of these sequences is debatably the sudden and completely unconnected resurrection of Rick and Morty’s long-dead alternative selves, which up until this yarn were harmlessly rotting in a pair of shallow graves out in the Smith family’s back garden. The gruesome-looking zombies’ sudden emergence to attack Sanchez whilst the scientist is busy throwing a temper tantrum occurs completely out of the blue and once succinctly resolved, courtesy of a conveniently placed laser gun, is unconvincingly written off as simply being the result of “some ambient space energy that galaxy chick brought to earth with her.”

However, Rick’s decision to create a deadly tournament to identify those heroes capable of joining “the first-ever League of Really Cool Intellectual Properties” is also somewhat suspect, due to the entire scene being glossed over by a handful of splash pages depicting numerous competitors getting eaten, lasered, fried, chopped and mutilated in a variety of different manners. Admittedly, some of these deaths are rather horrifyingly humorous in their execution, as is poor Morty’s reaction to the extraordinarily high kill count when he’s tasked with buying more garbage bags for all the severed body parts. But apart from one extended sketch showing the event’s entire arena, it’s never actually explained what is going on, and whether the participants are meant to be solely tackling the horrendously lethal hurdles before them or battling it out with one another as well.?

Possibly just as off-kilter as some of this comic’s penmanship though is the artwork of Ryan Lee, which debatably depicts the narrative with a little more detailed pencilling than is necessary. Admirably, the illustrator has clearly gone to some considerable lengths in adapting their style so as to mimic that of the cartoon show. Yet by then adding extra lines here and there to the most recognisable cast members, he has caused them to always look slightly different from how a reader might mentally picture them.

Written by: Stephanie Phillips, Illustrated by: Ryan Lee, and Colored by: Doug Garbark