Sorry, screwed up the scheduling on this one. Family event has me distracted.
Never take a horse to an airplane flight.
The Real Adventures Of Jonny Quest #8
Dark Horse (May, 1997)
LETTERER: Tracey Hampton-Munsey COVER ART: Gene Ha COVER COLORISTS: Ray Frehrenback & Chris Horn ASSISTANT EDITOR: David Land EDITOR: Philip Amara “Doorway To Infinity” part 1 WRITER: Tom Bierbaum PENCILER: Gene Ha INKER: Andrew Pepoy COLORIST: Dave Nestelle & Jim Johns “Endgame” WRITER: Kate Worley PENCILER: Ron Randall INKERS: Ron Randall & Rachel Pinnock COLORIST: Perry McNamee
I’m seriously breaking format for this one because there are so many things this issue does wrong that coming out as “meh” is the best I can do. One that plagues both stories is an extension of an old complaint. Questworld doesn’t look all that different from the art of the “real” world when in the show it was done in computer animation. But until this issue they at least had different clothes, matching the armor of the CG. In this issue, however, they wear the same clothes in the Questworld game as they are in reality. This is a VR headpiece interface system, not the holodeck!
That said, the stories have their individual failings as well. The first story is the length of a back-up story and it’s a multi-part story. Why not put both parts together as one story if there’s a second adventure? My biggest problem, however, is that we’re dropped right in a Questworld story right in the middle, with no explanation coming outside of some comment about this world being something Jonny saw in a dream. Again, Jonny is awesome at everything. But is this world of Infinity actually a real world that Questworld can somehow access? That shouldn’t cause Jonny’s shirt in the real world to be damaged as it was in the game. Questworld is simply a VR system. He does not actually enter the world physically and while you can write that you can fool his mind, you can’t fool his clothes.
Compare this to the first story arc. Jonny is having dreams that turn out to be prophetic. Imagine seeing Jonny plagued by dreams of Infinity and deciding to recreate it in Questworld, only to have some effect on him as if his avatar is actually being transported to this world. There’s a good idea here but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Then there’s the second. longer story. A government agent wants to use Questworld to scan through a video game to find some stolen program. However, the bad guys are also seeking the information because they forgot how they hid it. But how are they accessing it? The agent gives them disks and Questworld can’t be hacked into by any schmuck. That’s why Surd getting into the system is such a big deal. It’s also an interesting idea, but one that doesn’t work within the rules of the show.
Unless you really want every issue this is easily one to avoid. The first story arc with the Rom made me hopeful for a good series, but I’m starting to remember why I became disappointed with it as it went on.
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