Unbagging Ambush Bug: Stocking Stuffer

Ambush Bug: Stocking Stuffer

#1

Release: Nov 1985

Cover: Jan 1986

Creators

Writer	Keith Giffen, Ernie Colón, Robert Loren Fleming
Artist	Ernie Colón, Jim Valentino
Cover Penciller	Keith Giffen
Cover Inker	Bob Oksner
Penciller	Keith Giffen
Inker	Bob Oksner
Colorist	Anthony Tollin
Letterer	John Costanza
Editor	Julius Schwartz

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George Lucas was once told that there were no sounds in airless space. He didn’t believe it. Today George Lucas is a millionaire.

If I had such a thing as foresight I would have written this a few days ago, but the fact is I didn’t actually think about this issue until today and so I’m spending my Christmas writing an unbagging about a Christmas-themed comic from almost 40 years.

But it’s not as if I had anything better to do.

Those of you who read an early Unbagging featuring him are familiar with one Irwin Schwab AKA Ambush Bug, but for those of you who didn’t read it, he started out as a teleporting villain in an issue of DC Comics Presents, then became something of a comedic foil to Superman, and then just graduated to being a wacky, fourth-wall-breaking agent of chaos.

By the time this special hit the stands, Ambush Bug had starred in his own mini-series, one in which he’d gained and then lost a kid sidekick, a lifeless doll he dubbed Cheeks the Toy Wonder. In the end, Cheeks made the ultimate sacrifice, “dying” while staying behind to defuse a bomb…which he couldn’t actually do, what with being an inanimate object.

So when we last checked in with A. Bug he was trying to learn to move on from the loss of his son/sidekick, and in this special we find him deciding to hit the beach.

Of course, while that’s what’s actually happening visually, in the captions we’re treated to the memoirs of a Vietnam vet.

Much like a certain animated rabbit to whom he owes a great deal of inspiration, the Bug took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up at a place that is decidedly not Pismo Beach.

While he’s trying to get his bearings he has an encounter with Hukka, an alien creature from Atari Force, which causes him to panic.

From there, the action and narration begin to match up a bit more and the holiday special becomes a war comic, more Hukkas appear, and Ambush Bug is about to become the ambushee.

That is, of course, until the people making the comic change their minds.

Ambush Bug then shows up and plants a flag on planet Hukka, leading to a Hukka-shattering kaboom…or at least a pop.

The mistreatment of Hukka does not, however, go unnoticed.

The gang then proceeds to completely ignore this threat, disparaging poor Hukka even further before pulling an Uno Reverse card.

Eventually, they move on and begin telling the actual story of the special – to the extent there is one – which focuses on the return of Cheeks.

Ambush Bug keeps having flashbacks to the heroic death of Cheeks, each one different and bearing no resemblance to what actually happened, but unbeknownst to ol’ Buggy, Cheeks is alive!

Except it isn’t the lovable, immobile Cheeks we knew and Ambush Bug loved. Cheeks is now a zombie with an insatiable need to eat the flesh of other toys. And this at Christmas!

Ambush Bug had discovered this when he visited Cheek’s grave and found it empty, and upon returning home finding a note telling a note saying, “Stop me before I eat again.”

He goes to a movie theater to do some research on zombies, but he refuses to believe that his sweet baby boy could be such a detestable creature.

Despite the copious reporting about this retail nightmare as Cheeks treats every toy store as an all you can eat buffet, Ambush Bug doesn’t seem to be able to find any leads and is unable to locate his child/sidekick.

And there’s worse news that he isn’t noticing: Cheeks’s victims are coming to life!

Cheeks himself ends up having a quest of his own.

We have an interlude with some characters who provide us with some exposition on how Cheeks has returned.

Ambush Bug, meanwhile, is reaching out to the various heroes of the DC Universe for help, but comes up empty.

What isn’t empty, however, is Cheeks’s stomach, as he continues to ruin Christmas for everyone…except for the legion of undead dolls he unwittingly created and who are now ready to follow him.

And that’s when team realizes that the special is supposed to to be 40 pages.

There are various wacky attempts at adding even more filler, though this time, at least, they’re a bit more tied to the actual season.

Of course, the biggest issue with the issue is that Ambush Bug never managed to find Cheeks.

Fortunately, the gets a little help from his drunken guardian angel.

This is, of course, a violation of continuity, which brings the heat down on Ambush Bug (ACAB includes Jonni DC), who interrupts Ambush Bug’s attempts to perform an exorcism on Cheeks.

She insists on following the actual plot for the remainder of the issue, which involves Ambush Bug ending up at Santa’s workshop.

Which was all just an elaborate setup by Fleming and Giffen to dump some snow on his head.

This leads to us finding Bug back at home nursing a cold, and then having yet another smoke-filled flashback about the death of Cheeks.

Or not.

And with that out of the way, Jonni DC chases the remaining undead dolls out of DC continuity, we get a tease for a future story about a reunion between Ambush Bug and a certain green-haired jovial jokester with whom Ambush Bug had been an inmate at Arkham and who claims to have a score to settle.

But ultimately, we close out with the message of the issue and the true meaning of Christmas.

As is always the case, the actual plot of the story isn’t the most fun part, it’s the various asides and meta-commentary, such as the special’s various tips on “How to Write Comic Books,” such as the one quoted at the beginning of this post, which allowed for adding the huge “Pop!” when Hukka exploded in airless space, or the tip on subtext that was a spoof of Ditko’s Mr. A.

The filler also includes appearances from various recurring characters, such as Mitsu Bishi, the Japanese version of Ambush Bug, and Peabody, of Peabody, Dicker, and Pending (with off-panel appearances by the others).

The little dig at Saturday morning cartoons – which still existed at the time this was published – written and illustrated by Ernie Colón is a lot of fun, satirizing the existence of most cartoons as extended TV commercials.

And, of course, it’s always fun seeing the interaction between Ambush Bug and the team bringing his adventures to four-color life.

This special was followed a few months later by a second mini-series, Son of Ambush Bug, which I think is probably the best set of stories featuring the teleporting bug-themed single father.

In any case, it’s Christmas, for those who celebrate, and I thought I should have at least one Christmas-themed Unbagging in the, er, bag, and so this is it.

So…Merry Christmas!

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