“Yesterday’s Comic> Pinky And The Brain #18

Even samurais are losing their jobs to robots.

Pinky And The Brain #18

DC Comics (December, 1997)

WRITER: Jesse Leon McCann

PENCILER: Walter Carzon

COLORING: Prismacolor

LETTERER: John Costanza

“Braintech”

INKER: Mike DeCarlo

“Brinky 1/2”

INKER: Jim Amash

The first story is a parody of mecha anime while the second has fun with the martial arts genre. Brain finds a crashed UFO and reverse engineers it into his “Braintech”. Unfortunately his hamster nemesis Snowball did the same to create his Snowtech and calling himself Captain Snowlock. However, he’s gone off-country and created his own “Death Star” hamster ball, which is the only break in the parody. Now Brain has to stop him, which costs them both their technology. This is a fun story for mecha fans, right down to Pinky giving narration. (Although it uses the old joke of live narration but you could read part of it in the voice of the Robotech or Mobile Suit Gundam Wing narrators and it would totally work.

The second takes most of its cues from Ranma 1/2. Brain goes to a similar cursed pool of drowning victims (which frankly raises a lot of questions about why people visit this place) in hopes of a shortcut to learning martial arts. Unfortunately the martial arts master who drowned in this pool had a split personality and when Pinky tries to save him they ended up in a Firestorm-style merging. The difference is they switch places based on the temperature of liquid they’re hit with, which as Brain notes tends to go flying into the cage of the place “Brinky” goes to test his new skills. The method of their re-separation is a bit suspect but it’s not like this or Animaniacs made the most sense. That was part of the fun.

If you liked the show and are also fans of mecha or martial arts anime/manga, you’re going to love this issue while fans of one or the other may still find something to enjoy.