Daily Comic Book Mission #001: Groo #1

Welcome to the very first ComicBook.Beer Daily Comic Book Mission. I was going to say I've got a mission for you if you choose to accept it, but you have no choice but to accept it. Your mission, whether you like it or not, is to read Groo the Wanderer.

One Who Wanders.... Sergio Aragonés, Groo, the Wanderer. That just doesn't roll off the tongue. Groo, the Wanderer. Number one. From March of 1985, published by Marvel Comics with their Epic Comics imprint. The first Groo, a delightful series. When I open the cover, I'm greeted not just by Sergio Aragonés giving me some backstory on the Groo series which actually is a very nice touch for the first issue because Groo has a story even before he landed at Marvel but, in addition to that, is a sweet ad for Go-Bots. Mighty robots, mighty vehicles, but still worse than Transformers. It's cool ad though.

If you're not familiar with the Groo series, and if for some reason you are defiant and refuse to take this mission, which will end badly for you, and you don't want to start with issue number one, which costs a couple bucks. You can jump into the Groo series at any point, really. It's not like a big storyline-driven comic book series. Those who don't know, Groo is like a parody of Conan the Barbarian, more or less. It's a parody of the fantasy sword and sorcery genre.

And Groo is a barbarian warrior, a wanderer who's completely incompetent and also bad luck. So when Groo chooses to help somebody, then bad luck will fall upon those whom he chooses to help. So if Groo joins an army, the army loses. If Groo is sent out to get food, all of the food dies before it gets to the people it's supposed to feed. And Sergio Aragonés is just an incredible, wonderful artist. Nobody else has ever duplicated his style, so each issue is really unique and they're dense with artwork where you can just read repeatedly and just pick out details hiding in the backgrounds. There's all these little crazy characters everywhere and dragons, and usually there's these big opening spreads when you start a Groo comic book issue, including the first one here. I guess this will be the first opening spread.

It's got a minstrel singing a song, there's always songs about Gru and this is illustrated by Sergio Aragones written by Mark Evanier. Man, all these names that are hard to pronounce, which probably aren't hard to pronounce. I'm just an idiot. Evanier. Evanier. Evanier. You know what? It's E-V-A-N-I-E-R. So you figure that one out. Issue number one is titled "The Song of Groo" and I guess for readers who may have never seen Groo before this issue, the first issue, It just jumps right into the story where the king sends Groo out to get food, he screws it up, then the king asks Groo to defend a bridge from an invading army. He lets the invading army pass, but the bridge is safe because he's an idiot. Or maybe he's smarter than the king and just took it literally. And then the core of the story here is where the king wants to invade a city.

But the city has a pact with a different city, so that if it's invaded, like the army goes from one city to the other, anyway, they send Groo to invade the city, assuming that Groo will be killed. And then the other city will send its army to go and help defend the city where Groo is being horribly killed. And then that city will be left empty, and then they're going to invade that. Anyway, Groo conquers the city that he wasn't supposed to conquer. And throws off the whole thing and screws everything up. And it's really funny. And of course it's funny because all Groos are supposed to be funny.

It's a thing you don't see that much anymore. Humor. Try it, it's fun. I'm looking at the back spread again here. Just the amount of detail that Sergio Aragones packs into each page is just remarkable. And also we've got a bullpen, bulletins, and one of the best parts of this issue is at the very end of it is 50 important facts about Sergio Aragones. So you get to learn a bit about the artist and some of the other people involved.

It's a terrific issue. The whole series is good. Well, you don't have to start with issue number one to fully understand Groo the Wanderer. I recommend it if you happen to find a copy which is sadly approved by the comics code, so there's no decapitations or nudity or drugs or any good stuff. So that's your first ComicBook.beer Daily Comic Book Mission that you have no choice but to accept happy reading and...

Did I err? It's the Groo catchphrase. Come on, it's the first time we get to see that. And I think his fondness of cheese dip. Groo the Wanderer, number one.