Main cover by Paul Pope and Lovern Kindzierski

“The Wild Wondrous West”
Writer: James Tynion IV
Artist: Carlos D’Anda
Colorist: Gabe Eltaeb
Letterer: Clem Robins
Editors: Brittany Holzherr and Dan DiDio

At the end of Kamandi Challenge no. 3, Kamandi and his plant-girl companion Vila were about to be sacrificed to the jaguars’ deity, a giant-sized jaguar so huge that it wears trucks and a jet on chains around its neck as jewelry. As issue 4 gets underway, the giant grabs Kamandi in its enormous paw; Kamandi struggles to escape, stabbing at the beast. He discovers that rather than blood, his knife draws oil from the wound, just before the creature shoves Kamandi in its mouth and swallows him. Abruptly, the scene changes, and Kamandi finds himself in a high-tech control room, the literal belly of the beast: the jaguar “god” is actually a giant mecha, a robot piloted by a pair of jaguar scientists, Cano and R’lash.

Kamandi’s captors explain that they were outcasts from the superstitious jaguar society, skeptical of the cults’ unscientific reliance on myth and ritual. Discovering a cache of ancient technology, the pair taught themselves to use it and built their robotic version of the sun cult’s god, exploiting the jaguars’ credulity and putting themselves at the head of their society. All of this they explain to Kamandi (and Vila, who is also “eaten”), leading up to their plan to dissect him for study (a talking human continues to be a rarity in this post-cataclysmic world).

Kamandi (who was swallowed unscathed because of a lucky malfunction of the machine’s chewing function) isn’t so easily killed however, and he uses a gun to destroy the machine’s control panel; he and Vila (injured but still alive) climb back out of the god’s mouth and into the cockpit of the ancient fighter jet that the machine wears around its neck. They are able to take off (breaking off the jaguar god’s robotic head and revealing Cano’s deception to the other jaguars), but as they climb in altitude they black out.

After regaining consciousness, Kamandi finds himself in a desert next to the crashed jet (and Vila, dehydrated) at the base of a mysterious wall. Kamandi hears voices calling his name from the other side of the wall; strange vehicles approach, driven by figures he can’t quite make out in the blazing sun, but when he attempts to communicate with them, he is struck down by a boomerang to the head. While unconscious, he seems to experience contact with an unknown entity, but that conversation too is cut short and Kamandi awakens alongside Vila, healed, in another unknown location.

Their reunion is brief, however, as a voice instructs them to choose weapons from an arsenal, and the platform on which they stand rises up and opens into a giant arena. Once more Kamandi must fight before a roaring crowd, this time in the Australian Outback, in the domain of the “Kanga Rat Murder Society,” guardians of the “Wondrous Western Wall.” The last page of this issue has Kamandi and Vila hop aboard a Kirby-esque Big Wheel, preparing to flee or fight for their lives.

It took me a couple of readings of this issue to put my finger on why it seemed a little thin. It’s not for lack of incident or characters, and there’s quite a bit I liked about “The Wild Wondrous West,” but it comes down, I think, to the fact that Kamandi gets knocked out and wakes up in a new location twice: it’s a dynamic that helps our heroes get from one place to another, but makes it a challenge to build up much momentum. (It’s probably a side effect of the tag-team storytelling approach, as well: each pair of writers and artists has only one issue to wrap up the previous issue’s cliffhanger and then make their own contribution.) The settings also feel a little familiar; true, gladiatorial arenas are a staple of post-apocalyptic fiction, but we’ve already seen something similar to this in the first issue.

At least this issue’s reveal makes the jaguar god into something different from the giant gorilla Tiny. A pattern is emerging in which the threats facing our heroes in the cliffhangers turn out to be not quite what they seem, and the Star Trek-like false god is a particularly clever solution to last issue’s trap. The jaguar inventors piloting their robotic creation are interesting and original characters in their own right: writer James Tynion IV gives them strong personalities through their dialogue, even as “Professor” Cano and his hunchbacked assistant R’lash inhabit well-worn “mad scientist” territory. I was sad to see them go.

Above all, this issue benefits from atmospheric art provided by Carlos D’Anda, and particularly Gabe Etlaeb’s moody colors (the ominous red lighting inside the jaguar mecha is going to stick with me long after this series has been put to bed, I think). The transitions between settings are made crystal clear by the use of fade-outs and contrasting palettes: there’s no need for an “Elsewhere . . .” caption when the dark tones of the jaguar island give way to the bright yellows and blues of the desert. You can practically feel Kamandi’s thirst, and the haze through which the Kanga Rats appear gives the scene a cinematic feel; past Kamandi books haven’t always captured the kinetic energy of the Mad Max movies when they turn to vehicular mayhem, but the last few pages promise a spectacle that actually moves. One hopes the next team to take over can meet the expectation this issue sets up.