I bought Ambush Bug: Year None #1-5 and 7*!

Ambush Bug: Year None #1-5, 7* Written by Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming Art by Keith Giffen, Al Milgrom, and more (*I'll get to that...)

Jonni DC - the continuity cop who keeps everything flowing smoothly in the DC Universe - is dead, and Ambush Bug is determined to find out who killed her.

No one else really seems to care.

I have loved Ambush Bug since discovering him in Action Comics #565 in early 1985. (I only recently learned that he was significantly more violent in his earlier appearances, which I'm glad I missed.) Over the next seven years, I bought and read all of the mini-series and one-shots and enjoyed them, even if the art was a little rougher than I was used to and I didn't understand all the jokes that were made. That never mattered; if one went over my head there were two or three more on the same page that left me chuckling.

By far, my favorite aspect of the character is his relationship with the "fourth wall" - the imaginary barrier between a story and its readers. Many major comic book characters have broken the fourth wall at one time or another through the years, usually as a one-off gag similar to the way Looney Tunes characters would turn to the camera and make a remark about their situation or with a simple wink and a nod at the end of a story.

Ambush Bug doesn't break it so much as he simply denies its existence. He and most of the other characters in his stories know they are comic book characters in a comic book being read by comic book readers. While the events happening on the page are very real to Ambush Bug, the readership is equally as real and, if anything, he is perturbed at the readers for demanding the comic stories happen solely for their entertainment. Everything makes sense because nothing makes sense.

This series is no different. In it Ambush Bug spends as much time, or possibly more, acknowledging (and often mocking) both comic fandom and DC Comics as a publisher as he does teleporting to various areas of the DC multiverse and meeting with some of the company's more obscure characters in his attempt to bring Jonni DC's murderer to justice. The more readers know about the overall history of DC Comics and the state of the company at the time this series was published - specifically the "One Year Later" event which impacted most mainstream titles the criticism of the editorial direction, and certain company leaders - the more references they'll understand, but I don't believe any of that is necessary to enjoy this six-issue series.

But wait...what about that seventh issue?

At the end of the fifth issue, all signs pointed to issue #6 being released approximately a month later as scheduled. But it never showed up.

When another issue was released ten months later it was labeled as #7. Was this to acknowledge the unusual amount of time between issues? A meta-commentary on the One Year Later theme? A way to drive obsessive completist collectors bonkers when filing their comics and filling out databases? I suspect only writer Keith Giffen knows for sure.

Complete story? Check. (As much as an Ambush Bug story can be, anyway...) Fun? Check! How could it not be with characters like Argh!Yle, Mitsu Bishi, and Cheeks the Toy Wonder?

Rereadability? Check! I have no doubt I'll pick up on things I missed the first time through.

Final verdict? Glad I bought it, even if I STILL don't get all the jokes.