Rick And Morty Verses Cthulhu #2 - Oni Press

RICK AND MORTY VERSES CTHULHU No. 2, January 2023

Despite this comic’s narrative tying into arguably one of H. P. Lovecraft’s most popular horror novellas - “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, Jim Zub’s subsequent decision to then make his twenty-two-page plot ‘Rick Sanchez free’ must surely have struck many fans of this Cartoon Network/Cthulhu Mythos crossover as a big mistake. For whilst both Morty and Summer Smith initially make an impressive duo as they bravely batter the fish-faced denizens who caused their grandfather’s apparent death. By the time the pair have been separated from one another by their eventual captors and commence vastly contrasting ‘escape plans’, the book’s pace has somewhat slowed to something of an expletive-laden crawl; “I have seen enough s**t in this a**hole dimension to give me nightmares for the rest of my life.” 

True, Sum-Sum’s mind trip to the Dreamlands definitely gees things up a little when Zadok Allen is shockingly speared through the chest by a roving pack of savage Moon Beasts, and the terrified teenager is forced to flee for her life before she suffers a similar lethal fate. But this action-sequence is somewhat short-lived, and debatably feels like it was simply ‘crowbarred’ into the adventure just to help fill a void prior to the gore-splattered girl meeting Nyarlathotep and the Egyptian deity’s army of murderously savage cats.

Disappointingly, Morty’s thread is even more sedentary, at least to start with, courtesy of the Canadian author focusing upon the boy’s virginity whilst he is interrogated in a dingy cell. This supposedly embarrassing state of affairs is explored for over a dozen panels and does not actually end until near the book’s conclusion when it becomes clear it matters neither one way nor another to the sea-dwelling Dagon. Indeed, considering the puzzled reaction of Innsmouth’s chief cultist when the boy mentions 'unflowering himself' with a female co-captive, there is a strong suggestion that Rick’s grandson actually imagined his entire intimate moment with Cathy anyway.

Perhaps also capable of causing this publication’s audience some consternation is Troy Little’s rough-looking artwork, which was purposely pencilled to appear somewhat less clean-lined than normal so as to add an extra level of grubbiness to those scenes set within the decrepit seaport. Unfortunately, this 'filter' debatably starts to ‘spoil the senses’ after a while, especially when the cartoonist returns to his usual style in order to illustrate Summer’s aforementioned exploits having “move[d] above tha Earthly coil”.

The regular cover art of "RICK AND MORTY VERSES CTHULHU" #2 by Troy Little