Pick of the Brown Bag
January 31, 2025
by
Ray Tate
Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag, a comic book review blog where yours truly attempts to entertain you with subjective and objective commentary on the latest from the rack. Not to mention direct your dollars away from dreck.
Space Ghost. Voiced by the frequently imitated Gary Owens; created and designed by legendary illustrator Alex Toth; influential to Batman the Animated Series, ad infinitum and who knows how many other art projects.
Maybe they simply have the same tailor.
Okay. That's spooky.
Space Ghost soared through the universe in the 1960s, courtesy of Hanna-Barbera. This was no timid cartoon series. Our hero often dispensed swift, brutal justice right under the noses of the censors.
That being said. He never would have gotten away with the kidney punch in his premiere issue from Dynamite. Damn! That looks painful!
Either the keepers of moral fortitude weren't paying attention, or they maintained the motto: if not human or human-like, it may die. 
When not outright blasting the hell out of his rogues gallery, Space Ghost sometimes left villains to suffer the lethal backfiring consequences of their own schemes.
Abandoned to be eaten by his pet.
The bad eggs sometimes returned to plague the cosmos. Space Ghost however didn't know they would make it out of the volcano alive, and he did not care.
Another notable theme in Space Ghost; to the villains, he was a known quantity. Zorak, Brak, the Widow, Metallus, encountered Space Ghost before. So each episode of the series though new to the viewer turned out to be a sequel to some unseen first adventure.
This brings me to the latest Space Ghost comic book series from Dynamite Publishing.
Issue one reveals how Space Ghost meets his aids Jan and Jace. I recall reading an article that identified Space Ghost as Jan's and Jace's uncle.
If not apocryphal, the relationship likely only made it to the production notes. It's not canonical to the original television series, nor the subsequent series Space Stars. So, you shouldn't expect finding that familiarity here.
Notice that Jan and Jace are much younger than the teenagers seen in the television series. Here they're adolescents and drawn that way.
All these adventures predate the 1960s Space Ghost. Writer David Pepose and phenomenal Black Terror artist Jonathan Lau sometimes use the opportunity to reveal first crossed swords.
The Widow, original name changed for obvious reasons, on the other hand knows who Space Ghost was. As revealed in issue three.
I'm just itching to know how. Pepose however does not divulge that morsel. It could be that the Widow simply acquired that knowledge. Since information is her brokerage.
Issue two presents a new origin for Space Ghost, seen in his flashback.
It's funny. Nobody actually believes Space Ghost could possibly arise from anything but tragedy. The way the television series character behaved, Gary Owens' straight delivery of his dialogue all lead to one conclusion. Evil deflected this man's peaceful trajectory.
In Future Quest, Space Ghost truly mirrored the Lone Ranger. Here, Pepose gives him an even more personal vendetta. A thirst he quenches in issues eight and nine.
Space Ghost's origin story also gives more weight to the name of his headquarters, the Ghost Planet, explains the power bands, his costume and his laboratory.
Issues four and five comprise the story many Space Ghost fans and those with misty memories of the series have been waiting for. Space Ghost vs. Zorak, with an extra helping of another Space Ghost villain thrown in for flavor.
Zorak departs the most in this doublet. Pepose and Lau turn Zorak into a religious zealot. I'm of two minds for this change. On the one hand, he really didn't need an update. He's a praying mantis based alien who hates Space Ghost.
On the flip side, I applaud the creative team for noting how separate Space Ghost enemies can be combined to create an almost Lovecraft influenced threat to the universe. That's right Lovecraft and Space Ghost. You read that.
Pepose takes the opportunity of the aftermath to give Jace a little more depth. This carries over into issue six, where Space Ghost admits his own failures since "adopting" Jan and Jace.
Don't worry though. This won't turn maudlin. There's plenty of action in the comic book when Pepose and Lau revisit Moltar.
Lau with colorist Andrew Dalhouse honors the original designs of the characters while escalating the threat level to eleven, paraphrasing Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel.
And that's really a signature of this series' surprising success. Lau's art is completely opposite the simplicity of Alex Toth, but he recaptures the important aspects. Space Ghost is powerfully built. Even without his power bands, Space Ghost is no lightweight.
The costume remains unchanged because it's perfection. Lau merely grants it more texture.
Every panel creates the illusion of tactility. You can almost hear the shift of Space Ghost's cape. Pepose in turn really doesn't change the essence of Space Ghost, and you'll sometimes hear Gary Owens when reading the dialogue.
I haven't forgotten about Blip. You know. Speed Racer also co-starred a simian...Anyway....
Pepose very smartly transforms Hanna-Barbera cuteness and cartoony behavior into a plot point.
Blip didn't just do what he did on the television series because he was smarter than the average monkey. According to Pepose, Blip is what organizational villain Robo-Corp is really after.
All of this bubbles up in issue seven where the Creature King rears his ugly head, for the first time in context.
The Creature King uses his genius to augment animal intelligence without vivisection or any lasting harm. This fits his Mole Man persona. Though he's a little weirder, given that he's an alien. The creatures are aliens, and yet he prefers alien animals to alien intelligent species.
Creature King further increases the odds in his favor by using the same technique to dumb down Space Ghost, Jan and Jace. Blip on the other hand...
It's a pretty wild issue where Blip takes center stage in revealing dialogue that explains why he wears a mask and rocket pack.
Last but not least, issues eight and nine, Space Ghost faces the man who murdered his family. The darker characterization of the so-called Iron General in some ways reflects the darker characterization of Black Manta in modern times, also voiced by Ted Cassidy in The Challenge of the Super-Friends.
The Iron General's identity doesn't come as a surprise to me, but I'll keep his identity secret in case you want to hope for shock later.
With nine issues running, consistently superb artwork and thoughtful storytelling, yet mostly done in one issues, Space Ghooooost is highly recommended.
