Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. So an assassin nun, a combat-trained teenager, and an immortal man walk into a bottomless satchel. No? Well, A&A: Adventures of Archer and Armstrong has something in store for you. After the evil Party God Bacchus manages to leave the deepest depths of the satchel and begins to make his way up the satchel, leaving a drunken Archer, a pissed off Armstrong and Mary-Maria who is reluctantly helping, the trio are too busy killing evil (possibly union working) trolls to make chase after the Party God.
Unexpected and refreshing dialogue is the name of the game in this issue, drunk Archer continues to make what all drunk teenagers do, embarrass themselves in front of their loved ones, which is tough because one of them is shirtless but he did manage to puke on a fellow teen, so all points go to Archer for pulling off teen drunk. The banter between the three of them is never tiring, flows very well from one situation to another without skipping a beat on the action, I laughed at a Mary-Maria feeling awkward from her drunken brother calling her pretty, as well as the rest of the ninja nuns (I know their name but ninja nuns sounds cooler) bored out of their minds while having to watch guard over an open satchel on the floor.
The panel layouts on this comic are something I only see a couple times done before. It worked very well during the 4-issue mini series Delinquents, and it works wonders here. They give continuity to the fights when needed and provide a perfect visual vehicle as buttons to great jokes in the narrative. A&A is a book that basks in the idea that it will never take itself seriously and instead make wonders with the great characters it’s been given. The amount of panels in one single page lets me know how well this creative team is working together and how much fun they must be having with this book. There is a part of me who hopes Davey the Mackerel will be more than a great surprise satchel tennant and an amazing cover.
A&A is delivering on the promise of adventure and continues to be a laugh out loud book that competes with any of the books the big two are delivering right now.
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A&A: Adventures of Archer and Armstrong #3 Writer: Rafer Roberts Artist: David Lafuente Inker: Ryan Winn Colorist: Brian Reber Publisher: Valiant Comics Price: $3.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital
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