TGH: Welcome to another exciting issue of Guy Gardner! This week, Lobo comes back and ruins the hell out of Guy’s title!

QP: And his shirt.

DN: And the ketchup packet in his jacket pocket.

TGH: He needed that!

QP: You never know when someone might give you some french fries.

TGH: The issue starts right where the last one left off, with Guy handling Goldface and Repo over to the cops. I guess the other two escaped or something.

DN: Or just weren’t terribly important. Goldface once again looking like the world’s most expensive linebacker.

QP: Our fearsome villains make their departure from this story arc while bickering like two old hens.

TGH: All the while his lizard-man agent is talking him up to the press. Guy will capture at least 50% of all criminals he goes after! That’s our Guy!

QP: Eh, probably better than the NYPD at the time.

DN: Same joke but I was going to use Detroit.

QP: Better than the Detroit PD all the time.

DN: To this day.

QP: Lizard Man sells up our gal Sally to the press. Who is she indeed?!

TGH: As they leave, Sally starts to feel self-conscious about her profession, since she’s in the public eye now.

QP: Guy asks her what she wants to do, and she submits an idea that I want to slap someone at DC for not running a regular series of. ESCORT DETECTIVES.

TGH: Seriously, Sally running an escort detective service would have been The. Best. Comic.

DN: I would have bought 10 of its holo-foil first issue.

QP: Well of course you would’ve, you were like 12 at the time.

DN: Point. I’m fairly certain I paid money for a Vamperella comic back then.

QP: Guy agrees with us that this is the greatest idea he’s ever heard, and basically writes her a blank check to get started.

TGH: Oh man, Guy’s pen has a tiny G on it.

DN: He can get unlimited money for reasons I’ve forgotten.

TGH: He’s working for the Guardians, I mean Gardners of the Galaxy, I mean Universe. He gets paid with a gem vending machine apparently. Not bad considering he has done literally nothing for them yet.

DN: Ah, yes.

TGH: A mysterious person has been in the apartment the whole time!

TGH: Spoilers: It’s Lobo. I kind of want to nitpick his entrance here. Wouldn’t it have been better if Goldface was put away at the end of the last issue, then Guy comes home to find Lobo waiting for him? That would be the best cliffhanger instead of him just kind of wandering in a quarter of the way into the issue. Plus wrapping it up last issue would have the added bonus of letting them cut those awful Hal scenes to make room.

QP: Also if the crime was committed in California it would not be in NYC’s jurisdiction to imprison them.

DN: Maybe New York has the super jail?

QP: Dunno, looks like they’re just at a police station based on the first page.

TGH: When he steps outside to see his fans earlier he says he loves New York, but maybe they’re actually in California and he just felt like saying that.

QP: Maybe it was a big fuck you to California.

TGH: I mean, he does have brain damage. “Thank you everyone! I like pizza!”

DN: Brain damage that is probably worse by the end of the issue. Concussions are no laughing matter. Unless it’s Guy Gardner. Then I laugh a little.

QP: Actually if he has chronic traumatic encephalopathy that would explain his last 20 years in the DCU.

TGH: I bet DC handles it with the sensitivity it deserves.

DN: Oh, of course.

QP: Anyway, Lobo wants the ring. Which of course he does.

DN: It’s the principle of the thing.

QP: And Guy seriously tries to argue loopholes and technicalities with him to keep it.

TGH: Lobo wants to hear none of Guy’s bullshit, so Guy puts a cartoon ring around him, thus stopping him forever.

QP: Lobo breaks out of the ring because willpower. Which seems like a bit of a cheat on the writer’s part, but whatever.

DN: Which Lobo has more of?

QP: Unless willpower rings being powerless against people with more willpower is canon, in which case they seem kinda useless against large chunks of the galaxy.

TGH: Well if Guy can control his ring remotely I don’t see why Lobo can’t break his shit with his brain too.

QP: Fair enough. Why doesn’t Lobo have a ring? I mean, clearly he is superlative in willpower and fearlessness.

TGH: Because Guy’s an asshole.

DN: Because he’d murder Oa.

QP: Does the ring qualify on that tho? I mean, sentient space jewelry just knows Lobo would wreck it’s home planet?

TGH: I like that Lobo knows how it works and just lets Guy know that he has no chance against him before tearing it apart. Then he claims he just wants the ring on principle and hurls Guy out the window.

QP: You know, in retrospect, I bet if Guy had just rolled up into Lobo’s house back in Guy Gardner Reborn issue whatever and said, “Hey, Lobo, I know you hate me, but I’m in a planet-wrecking mood, want to go wreck some planets?” and conveniently left out the whole “and also help me steal a superweapon” bit, he would’ve saved himself a lot of trouble here.

TGH: Guy and Lobo spend some time using a Port-a-John as a weapon.

DN: Lobo seems hellbent on damaging Guy’s self-esteem as much as his face parts. LOSER!

TGH: Lobo calling Guy a loser sets him off into some exposition about all of his problems ever.

QP: With relevant issue numbers for the stalwart collector.

DN: Yeah this issue is like editor porn.

TGH: Maybe he lost Ice.

QP: “Maybe.”

DN: Maybe I lost her down a stairwell I shoved her down. MAYBE.

TGH: Maybe I keep telling her to piss off.

QP: Maybe she’s over all that tho (probably)?

TGH: Guy tells Lobo to get a lawyer, which sets him off, but just into violence instead of back issue recommendations.

QP: And then, in typical Guy Gardner style, several pages of punching.

DN: So much punching.

QP: At least they’re also talking.

TGH: Lobo has a building dropped on him.

QP: Thankfully this one was condemned, unlike all those ones in Times Square.

TGH: It does not work, so Guy gets beat up some more.

DN: Guy keeps forgetting Lobo can regenerate from a drop of blood.

TGH: His agent gets pretty worried that Guy’s death is going to look bad for his reputation.

QP: Lizard Agent Man is very concerned about Guy…’s face for his post-fight photo-ops.

TGH: Lobo brings up Guy’s family, which gets a scowl. Character development I guess! God, so much fighting. I guess people were waiting for it, and this issue does not disappoint.

QP: This sets Guy off into another soul-searching blahbiddy blah segment while wrapping Lobo in I-beams. For being such a tough so and so is he way open and in touch with his feelings.

TGH: Guy holds him with the most diabolical rage face yet.

QP: Yeah, that panel is…something.

DN: Guy Gardner: Yellow Satan.

DN: Lobo breaks out and gives himself a new moniker.

TGH: Guy says his final words to lizard guy and sends him running.

QP: Sally, being made of sterner stuff, decides to stay and try to help I guess?

DN: Noble escort detective Sally will not leave her bestie.

QP: I don’t know exactly what she thinks she’s gonna do against Lobo, but whatevs.

TGH: She could probably take him, if anyone could.

QP: True.

TGH: Guy’s final plan is to hit Lobo with a lobster missile and send him away forever.

DN: But the ring craps out for plot reasons.

TGH: Guy’s ring dies YET AGAIN. I guess this is just going to be a thing forever.

QP: Even broken, Guy is not gonna give the ring up. And Lobo can still fence it, so it’s curtains for Gardner.

DN: Lobo punches Guy 10 times in a single panel.

TGH: Luckily the Servbots arrive just in time to save Guy’s life.

DN: The Gardners of the Universe trade cash prizes for letting Guy live.

QP: And I guess 50 million wubs is a lot or something, because Lobo loses any interest in killing Guy.

TGH: It’s a week’s worth of beer for Lobo, so probably a ton.

TGH: Lobo wants to kill Guy, but figures he’s going to get paid for it soon enough at this rate, so just leaves instead.

QP: I’m really sad for those little dudes that they’re still calling themselves the Gardners of the Universe.

TGH: It turns out that Lizard Guy convinced the Gardners to take the 50 million out of Guy’s pay, so really Guy bought the ring after all. Guy of course fires Lizard Guy, even though he’s clearly not worried about the money, since he lets Sally keep the check and is convinced that things will work out.

QP: I am also disappointed that they call Lizard Man Guy’s sidekick and not Sally, because that is SO inaccurate.

DN: Totally.

TGH: I’m going to go ahead and say that’s actually why he was fired.

QP: Good call.

DN: And then Guy and Sally also go for a beer. Beers for everyone! Sally is legitimately my favorite thing about these past 8 issues and three-part monstrosity.

QP: Yup.

DN: Sally > Robin, Speedy, Tom Kalmaku, Wally West

TGH: The letters are pretty much all reactions to the silent issue.

QP: “I can’t believe I paid money for this.”

DN: Holy shit does someone really say that? I’ve been ignoring them in favor of losing vision insurance.

QP: Alas, no. Only here in the future do we feel ripped off by that comic.

TGH: K. Michael Williams is a smartass.

TGH: Some dude really wants to have his letter printed, Guy suggests that he maybe discover women.

TGH: There’s a section where people guess who the mystery leg was (besides Guy’s incorrectly-drawn foot). Guy says it was Superman’s corpse. Burn.

DN: Revenge for Superman taking his deed to Earth or whatever.

QP: For hating the Green Lanterns they do spend a lot of time trying to get you to buy the other GL books.

TGH: Seriously, most of them don’t even seem to have Guy in them in any capacity.

QP: John Stewart teaming up with the KKK sounds like an early clickbait headline from CBR or something.

90’s Ad Showcase:

TGH: Just a reminder to the kids that we did once have a Coneheads movie. We are still atoning.

DN: Am I the only one who loved that flick?

QP: Whatever. That movie taught me at a young age that Tainted Love is a great song. And no, no you are not.

DN: Whew. Majority rules, Coneheads was great.

QP: Best movie of 1993.

TGH: Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Philadelphia, Coneheads.

DN: Wrong order.

QP: Indeed.

TGH: Sorry, add Groundhog Day in front.

QP: Oooooh yes okay. That is totally fair.

DN: I’ll concede that one.

TGH: Knightfall is still a thing that’s happening.

QP: Looking at that Knightfall ad I totally get where all the Batman parody bits in Cerebus were coming from now.

QP: And Superman is or is not dead maybe, but in any case there’s a fight and he’s in it.

TGH: Ah, Brach’s Rocks. I remember eating those, but have no recollection of how they were. How many kids were tricked into eating actual rocks that year I wonder? Also, Rocky D. is someone we should all aspire to be.

TGH: That guy ruined the ad for Avon’s Batman shampoo!

DN: It references Bloodlines which, as I’ve mentioned previously is a crossover where people get bit by alien vampires that give you super powers.

QP: Not a sweet Castlevania prologue?

DN: Sadly not. It gives us Garth Ennis’ Hitman. Which are 60 of the best issues of comics in the 90’s. Bloodlines, not shampoo.

QP: That thing looks like they made a sequel to WE3 with an orangutan instead of an adorable kitty.

TGH: Does he have veins on his exoskeleton?

QP: It does, yes.

TGH: Cool art, bro.

QP: Is that one of the alien vampire things since it’s busting through the blurb about Bloodlines?

DN: Ayup.

QP: which I must say, is terrible marketing.

DN: They all look about that terrible.

QP: Why is an alien vampire an orangutan in an exosuit? Dear God.

DN: Let’s move on.

QP: Yes, please.

Next Time:

TGH: Next issue is anyone’s guess, since a storyline actually ended. In my heart, Sally opens her detective agency and we focus on that for a while.

QP: Would that we were so lucky.

DN: …tell me straight, doc. Is Sally gone after this?

TGH: I mean, she’s rich now, so she’s probably better off getting away from all of Guy’s kitchen appliances.

QP: Oh definitely.

DN: Sigh. Saddened as I am, like Guy Gardner, I never give up.