Junkyard Joe

Morrie “Muddy” Davis has just put down his pencil.  After sixty years of drawing the “Junkyard Joe” comic strip, about some army grunts and a robot eternally going through basic training, he’s finally retired.  While the thought of a robot going through basic training may seem like a fantastic sci-fi concept, it’s based on something that happened to Muddy in real life.  When a robot accompanied him and his platoon on a dangerous assignment during the Vietnam War.  While it ended in tragedy, Muddy survived thanks to the efforts of his guardian angel.

Sixty years on and the whole thing may have just been a dream to the old cartoonist.  Until one day when Junkyard Joe himself comes to his door.  Though he may be a robot, Muddy sees in him the kind of veteran who’s been struggling to process what he experienced during wartime that he’s seen in himself and others.  So he takes him in, which surely won’t be an issue.  Not with the newly widowed father and his three kids moving in across the street.  Nor with the shadowy government types that are looking to get their robot back, no matter the cost.

It’s clear that the veteran experience was key to the story of “Junkyard Joe” as writer Geoff Johns and artist Gary Frank show both Muddy and Joe struggling with their experiences over the course of the volume.  However, that’s only part of the story here.  The rest feels like the kind of “Kids Find Some Cool Alien Thing” experience that “E.T.” begot through the 80’s.  It’s handled perfectly fine, with the expected level of professionalism that you’d expect from Johns and Frank.

The issue is that, in addition to being entirely predictable, the story is also incredibly violent for all the inspiration it has clearly gleamed from Spielberg’s classic film.  A lot of this volume does feel like the creators are trying to address the veteran experience in a family-friendly way.  It’s a sentiment that goes right out the window once the bullets start leaving gaping, bloody holes in their targets.

Then there’s the fact that “Junkyard Joe” is meant to be part of Johns and Frank’s interconnected “Unknown War” universe.  Joe showed up near the end of the first volume of “Geiger” and the protagonist from that series makes a cameo at the end that is sure to confuse anyone who didn’t read his comic.  If nothing else, the formulaic nature of “Junkyard Joe” made me appreciate the post-apocalyptic nuttiness of “Geiger’s world more and I’m looking forward to seeing it expanded upon in that upcoming ongoing series.  “Joe’s” story here is entirely self-contained, and I think that’s for the best, all things considered.