Lex Luthor/Porky Pig #1
Publisher: DC
Story: Mark Russell; Jim Fanning
Pencils: Brad Walker; John Loter
Inks: Andrew Hennessy; Paul J. Lopez
Colors: Andrew Dalhouse; Paul J. Lopez
Letters: Troy Peteri and Dave Lanphear; Wes Abbott
Cover: Ben Oliver (Variant Cover: Mac Rey)
One of four DC / Looney Tunes cross-over comics published this week, Lex Luthor/Porky Pig is perhaps the darkest and least fun of the group, featuring a down-on-his-luck Porky Pig who falls in with a typically seductive and manipulative Lex Luthor. As usual for these cross-overs, the premise is played completely straight; the Looney Tunes characters are depicted in a much-less cartoon-like manner, and nothing is made of a walking, talking anthropomorphized pig wearing clothes and running a global company akin to Bitcoin. While each writer takes some liberties with the formula, in Lex Luthor / Porky Pig, Porky and Lex interact together as though neither sees the other as anything other than a regular everyday person.
What makes Lex Luthor / Porky Pig a bit grimmer is the premise, involving everything from commentaries on the aforementioned cryptocurrency to corporate consolidation and greed, rising pharmaceutical costs, social media and trolls, and even racism in the business world. These aren’t light topics by any means, and they are even darker when the typically loveable Porky Pig is on the wrong side of all these issues, including one particularly disturbing scene in which he “solves” a crime by blaming a minority character, even as he admits to himself that the man had nothing to do with it.
Despite the shared co-billing on the title, the story is primarily owned by Lex Luthor and his actions, despite being narrated by Porky. A few fun cameos occur in the form of Doctors Ivo and Sivana, as well as Porky’s usual foil, Daffy Duck. But, it is Luthor who is the main character in this story, manipulating everyone in a way that only he can make look so effortless.
Brad Walker’s pencil work is quite good, with strong layouts and excellent figure designs, including a very gross Dr. Ivo. His designs are realistic and yet also have a slight cartoonish flair to them, such as somewhat exaggerated facial expressions for his characters, but without becoming too comical. Hennessy’s inking and especially Dalhouse’s coloring are the perfect accompaniment to the art. Overall, the art is stronger than the story, even though Walker’s Porky looks a little too human.
Stronger than the main story is a short back-up story by Jim Fanning, John Loter, and Paul Lopez, featuring a more traditional Looney Tunes artistic style and a more fun, lighthearted but madcap story involving Porky Pig as a traveling salesman trying to land the Lexcorp account for his employer, Acme Office Supply and Sundries. The short story is full of Looney Tunes-style sight gags, plays-on-words, and misunderstandings, and also features a brief appearance by the Son of Krypton himself.
Putting Lex Luthor and Porky Pig in the same title is perhaps the biggest stretch in this recent crop of DC/Looney Tunes cross-overs; Joker and Daffy Duck make a more natural pairing, as do Catwoman and Tweety and Sylvester. Even the Harley Quinn and Gossamer title has a certain oddball consistency to it, but nothing in Porky Pig’s history would suggest him as a good match for Lex Luthor, other than their baldness. That small connection is not enough to make the main story work, but the art and the back-up story are strong enough to make up for it.
Martin Thomas
martin@comicattack.net
