The Stop Button

What a goofy ending. Barr’s going for fifties sci-fi, which doesn’t seem appropriate, especially since he doesn’t have any humor about the book. Camelot 3000 is all very straight-faced, even Queen Guinevere’s futuristic battle garb being comic book female hero trampy. Meanwhile, Lancelot gets a bitching set of space armor.

Barr handles the love triangle unexpectedly, which starts the issue off on better footing than it finishes. He also reveals the source of the alien invasion, contriving a connection to the resurrected Knights of the Round Table. Why’s it contrived? Because he didn’t write the first issue with the revelation incorporated. The series would be much stronger if he had.

Bolland draws a lot of different stuff this issue, lots of future Earth locales, but he continues to ignore backgrounds once he’s done an establishing panel or two. The comic suffers for that decision.

Still, it’s mildly engaging.

CREDITS

Knight Quest!; writer, Mike W. Barr; penciller, Brian Bolland; inker, Bruce Patterson; colorist, Tatjana Wood; letterer, John Costanza; editor, Len Wein; publisher, DC Comics.

Contemporaneously…

• The Night Force 7 (February 1983)
• Ka-Zar the Savage 23 (February 1983)
• The Saga of the Swamp Thing 10 (February 1983)
• Detective Comics 523 (February 1983)
• Batman 356 (February 1983)