Here’s a first for Dose of Metal: I’m reviewing a comic. As many of you know, Scott Ian of Anthrax is a huge comic book nerd. He reads comic books and then writes songs about them (i.e. I Am The Law) and sometimes, he just writes comics himself, as was the case with Lobo – Highway To Hell.
Personally, I’m a comic book nerd myself. Be it Batman, Deadpool or the new Marvel Noir comics, I read a lot of comics. It’s my fourth passion, right after listening to metal, smoking weed and masturbation.
Highway To Hell was published in 2009 via DC Comics. Make the jump for my unusual review of said comic.
Lobo – Highway To Hell
Story & Art: Scott Ian & Sam Keith
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
Lobo created by Roger Slifer & Keith Giffen
First off, I have to admit that I’m new to Lobo. I haven’t read any Lobo comics before this one and just knew very little about him. You can view that as a negative or a positive thing. Negative because I can’t compare it to classic Lobo comics. Positive because I can review it objectively.
The first thing that really caught my attention, during reading this comic, were the numerous metal references. The obvious one is Highway To Hell, an AC/DC song. Right after Lobo is done killing a bunch of demons in the “Hell-Folk Bar”, he jumps into a car and the radio plays Pantera’s Cowboys From Hell, just for the radio announcer to say
“Due to rights clearance issues in hell, the lyrics to Pantera’s Cowboys From Hell have been omitted here. Just hum along.”
But there are also references to other comic books, like 300 or Constantine, and references to the writer himself, Scott Ian.
The story gets kind of confusing for people who aren’t familiar with Lobo’s backstory, like myself. Roughly, the story plays out like this: Lobo’s at home and a dead space dolphin, along with a note that reads “Call me, Bitch. Love, Satan”, flies through Lobo’s window. Lobo gets ready to go to hell to finish up Satan because he doesn’t like him hurting animals. A lot of killing later, Lobo confronts Satan just to find that he’s in fact a little girl and then it goes on and on, Lobo getting killed which sends him where? Well, hell of course. So it’s just a back and forth. But overall, it’s really funny and not boring (as you might think by my explanation here) at all.
So the question is, can I recommend this comic to other people? I can but only to those interested in comic books, preferably with knowledge about Lobo. If you’re just an Anthrax fan, have never read a comic before and just want to stay up-to-date with Ian, I can’t really recommend it to you. This comic is a bit too busy for starters, especially the art by Sam Keith.
Personally, I really liked the comic though. It’s been my first Lobo comic but I doubt it’ll be my last. I laughed quite a lot, which usually only Deadpool comics make me do. Also, I will be sure to check out Ian’s upcoming comic about Etrigan The Demon.
