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Lobo: Portrait Of A Bastich by Keith Giffen, Alan Grant and Simon Bisley
01/05/2008 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Titan/DC Comics. 208 page graphic novel. Price: £ 8.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84576-889-8. Buy Lobo: Portrait Of A Bastich in the USA - or Buy Lobo: Portrait Of A Bastich in the UK  check out website: www.titanbooks.comand www.dccomics.com
DC's Main Man is back! Actually, Lobo's not a man but a Czarnian, supposedly the last of his species although as this reprint covers his first two mini-series, the first shows he's obviously not.
Lobo is not a very nice person. He'd sooner kill than look at you or take your eyes out if you look at him. He even gives villains a bad name with his wanton destruction and murdering anyone who gets in his way and occasional bounty hunting that its amazing that none of DC's super-heroes have ever tackled him. I mean, you'd suppose he might run into a member of the Green Lantern Corps at the very least. About the only person who has any hold over Lobo is Vril Dox of L.E.G.I.O.N. 90 who actually beat him, although it had to be an unfair fight to do so.
The first mini-series here aptly if unimaginatively called 'Lobo' has Dox getting Lobo to transport a Czarnian school-teacher to L.E.G.I.O.N. headquarters, seeing it as a means to attract other gangs that can be sorted out. Things are never that simple and Miss Tribb was not only his fourth grade school-teacher but also wrote an unauthorised biography about him. To say Lobo is miffed is to understate what he feels, not helped by Tribb's own attitude.
There should now follow a warning that these mini-series are essentially wall-to-wall extreme violence and that if you have a nervous stomach left in your torso, then this material is definitely not for you. It doesn't even come close to the word gratuitous. That word is a long way back down the corridor. If anything, the fascination with Lobo is seeing how he copes with life as he unmakes it in his passing.
In the second mini-series here, 'Lobo's Back', I should point out that this has nothing to actually do with the Czarnian's actual back but where he came back from. He has a run-in with Mister Machete who rips him in two literally. Lobo wakes in Hell who decides they don't want him and evict him to Heaven. After some carnage there, they agree to reincarnate him without actually telling him all the options he can choose. Much to his dismay, Lobo returns to 1940 Earth as a female Czarnian and sets about getting himself killed again until he gets the body he wants. This story is definitely not for the pious amongst you or if any of you left have weak stomachs.
I read these two mini-series originally back in the early 90s. Lobo had a huge following then. I even have some of the 'Bite Me Fan Boy' promotional badges from the second series kicking around somewhere. If anything, he's the antithesis of the traditional DC leading character let loose under the writing fingers of Keith Giffin and Alan Grant and drawn by Simon Bisley. It won't be hard to spot the 2000A.D. comic influence in the art here. I don't think comic readers actually liked Lobo but its sorta like watching road-kill to see what happens next. The fact that there's endless black humour incorporated into these stories at least makes for an interesting ride. If you missed these two earliest mini-series, now's the time to look and see what the fuss is about.
In the interest of personal safety, I should point out that Lobo doesn't hate everyone. He loves his fishies also known as space-dolphins, and you wouldn't want to upset him over their safety.
GF Willmetts
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