We’ve all seen The Running Man and The Hunger Games and most of us have seen Battle Royale. We also know that Avengers Arena is currently playing darkly with the ‘people trapped and forced to kill each other’ game show theme as well. However, I will posit that Keith Giffen’s Threshold Presents The Hunted #3 is taking this concept and making it the most entertaining out of all of them. Well, okay, it’s hard to top Arnold vs. Richard Dawson, but still – this is an engagingly fun book.
The Hunted is a game/reality show that envelops a whole planet. Prisoners are set free, given a 24-hour grace period, and then everyone on the planet can hunt and kill them for sport, cash and prizes. It happens to be a planet full of beings hungering for that chance, and conscientious objectors are not treated well enough to be plentiful, as we learn in this issue. This concept eliminates the boundaries of the adventure’s scope, while at the same time retaining a claustrophobic intensity, because no matter where our heroes go, they’re bound to run into people who want to kill them. The upside is that this isn’t a dour, bleak story, either. It’s Giffen-tastic entertainment with as much tension-breaking comedy as it has tension-building danger. Also, there can be any number of Hunted at any one time, and right now, we’re following de-powered Green Lantern Jediah Caul, the confused Blue Beetle Jamie Reyes, and a young woman calling herself Stealth. Oh, and Captain K’Rot and his Zoo Crew have gotten mixed up in the proceedings by trying to capture Reyes for bounty hunter money – not Hunted money. Yes, it’s a gun-toting space bunny… who’s a ridiculous misogynist. Well, he’s become so since he started hanging out with a creep named Branx Rancor, whom we meet in Giffen’s backup story about Lrafleeze and his attempt to find out who stole his treasure. There’s a decent likelihood that his offensive behavior will eventually be somewhat curbed – or that he’ll be the new Guy Gardner from Giffen’s old Justice League International days.
That Giffen flavor that was prominent in JLI and the Super Buddies era seems to be what he’s going for with Threshold. The dialogue is quick, the banter is contentious and the characters are fun to follow. K’Rot has just sold out Caul to the Reach suit that’s currently in control of Reyes’ body – until he wakes up in the middle of the chase and freaks out to run, hide and figure out his next move. Caul is then bailed out by a guy named Hawkins and his reluctant robot “friend” Ilda, who claim to know where his missing power battery is (and who have disguised Caul by putting him in a holographic girl’s body). K’Rot and Sleen butt heads over his hubris (“it’s called ambition!”) and he has to look up the word ‘misogynist.” Space Ranger is trying to get Stealth to use her target status for reverse propaganda to try to fight against the whole concept of The Hunted, and then Jamie meets a guy named Lonar… who is apparently a loner.
The backup story is even more goofball, as Giffen plays Larfleeze for Laffs, pleeze. The aforementioned sleazebag Branx Rancor (whose nasty attitude we can only hope won’t become as popular as Lobo – another Giffen creation) is apparently the only guy that can help Larfleeze find out where all his stuff went and who stole it from him, but the very concept of “paying a fee” to anyone is anathema to the Orange Lantern of Avarice. Thus, they have a fight, but Larfleeze’s ring is out of juice and, as we see at the end, malfunctioning.
Scott Kolins’ art in the Larfleeze story here is bright and shiny, bordering on cartoony. Branx is all purple and pink and he looks like he’s the bad guy in an episode of Jem when they all go to space. The art duties on the A-story are split between Tom Raney and Phil Winslade, and while Raney makes out a bit better overall, it’s a fairly seamless transition and they definitely both turn in solid work.
It took three issues, but I’m now fully checked into whatever Keith Giffen is going to do with cosmic DC in the pages of Threshold. We may not have Ted Kord back, but we can at least get that flavor that made him famous with a bunch of new characters that DC is not likely to demand to use, abuse and murder anytime soon.
