The end of Mann’s World is pretty much what I’d figured it be, complete with the compressed second-to-third act transition and an elongated epilogue. The third act itself gets short-changed, but it’d just be more peculiar action, which never engages—less Nico Walter’s wanting art, more writer Victor Gischler being out of set piece ideas. Possibly because Walter can’t handle them but possibly because it’s just time for the comic to be over.

All the character drama—“all” is doing a lot of work there—hinges on the remaining heroes being shitty men. The almost cannibal rabble chasing them (seriously, just let Gischler do 2000 AD, it feels like Mann’s World should be in there but with a bunch more chapters) are wild beasts without interiority, but when Gischler lets the heroes have their big blowout about truth and responsibility and accountability… I mean, there’s no difference if Gischler were actively being misandrist. The characters are so blandly macho it feels like they’re on the loose from the WALL·E cruise ship; they’re profoundly incapable of critical thought.

Though, I get it, not easy to do far-flung future with humans in 2021. Like, intergalactic travel? Obviously never happening.

It boils down to Burt Reynolds guy thinking he’s the alpha and not realizing he’s not, which gets them in trouble with the locals—something the narrator argues with him about at least two times in the issue and it’s forced every time—and then the narrator having to man up in the end. Get it, man up?

Mann up.

They bring up his recent divorce and it’s like… if the ex-wife had just killed him, he couldn’t be in this comic and maybe I wouldn’t have had to read it and be this combination of exasperated and disappointed.

Maybe if Walter’s art were good, he’d be able to do the talking heads with enough competence to get over the thin characterizations, but it’s a big maybe. The problem with Mann’s World—outside the art and this issue in general—is the plot breakdown. It’s too rushed for what it’s doing, for what Walter’s bringing to it….

Still, as a 2000 AD serial it’d be great.

The art’s less bad this issue. I’m not sure there’s any improvement from Niko Walter, but there’s less he’s bad at drawing in the story this time. Less people talking. He seriously flubs one of the conversations to the point I thought I’d gotten all the characters names wrong, not just didn’t know one of them for the first two issues. The action this time is real Deliverance, with the regular fellas out of their element rafting to escape the bad guys.

Though it reminds more of Jurassic Park (the book, not the movie—or was it eventually in one of the movies) because they run into sea creatures. But no other wildlife. And also no dueling banjos.

There’s a lot of back and forth as the issue progresses about what they’re going to do when they escape; Duncan, the alpha Burt Reynolds, doesn’t want to report anything. Vince and Max, the interchangeable not-Duncan guys, argue about it. It’s a problem them being interchangeable because Vince is the narrator and Max has a mustache. There’s just no characterization to them, which isn’t Walter’s fault. Mann’s has gone long enough there’s only so much writer Victor Gischler can do to keep ahead of the building problems and the fact the characters are translucently thin hits this issue.

Most disturbingly, there’s only one issue left. I thought it was a five issue limited series, which would have made more sense with the first couple issues’ pacing. While a big thing happens this issue, it’s not big to the reader or even to the characters. It’s a fake big thing, because everything’s so thin there can’t be real big things.

It’s a brisk read and Walter’s nature art’s superior to his people action art and there’s a lot of nature here, but World is clearly in for a rough finish.

The art takes a dive this issue.

There’s a lot less detail, but there’s also a lot of action and Niko Walker’s action art is very awkward. There’s a splash page with like four entirely different major problems. Worse, Snakebike Cortez’s coloring is pretty bad here. He’s still showing a lot of the perspective, but the coloring techniques he does with it is… well, I suppose calling it rushed would be the most polite.

The art is very rushed this issue.

Anyway, there’s still a rather solid script from Victor Gischler. The issue opens with our Deliverance boys—they’re on Jurassic Planet but have pissed off the redneck locals instead of velociraptors to the point I was actually waiting for Gischler to try to get away with a Deliverance reference because it seemed so apt.

He doesn’t. No pop culture references; any proper noun dropping is to build the ground situation and maybe do a little character development (I finally realized the guy with a mustache has a name—Max—but I thought the Ned Beatty guy was Max so I’m confused again). It’s very responsible, every deliberate plotting.

The story covers the boys getting out of their crashed tourist barge and walking through the jungle in hopes of finding the aid stations, which the Burt Reynolds guy reminds were introduced last issue because Gischler’s very good at plotting. Only there’s a rainstorm—which might delay the rescue party, as we get asides back at the resort with the upset managers—and then there’s the additional problem of the rednecks finding our heroes.

Will Burt Reynolds prove to be as tough on the ground as on the holo-tube or whatever? Will there be some big shockers, including one Walker entirely whiffs? Yes to the latter, no comment on the former.

It’s too bad about the art but Gischler’s scripting is still keeping Mann’s World going.

Mann’s World has a simple start—a group of male friends on an “adventure” vacation together. Only instead of white water rafting through Alabama, they’re in the future and going to the title planet, which isn’t significant enough for environmentally exploiting so it’s just a giant resort. But for dudes who want to hunt; you can hunt dinosaurs, basically.

There are four characters in the group. There’s the pro-fighter guy, who seems super tough until we find out it’s probably all show-fighting and he’s not as actually tough as he’d like to be. He’s Burt Reynolds. Then there’s the narrator, who’s recently divorced or separated and this bro trip is supposed to get his mind right; Jon Voight. There’s the funny guy who owns a giant fast food franchise; Ned Beatty. Then there’s the other guy, who’s just around. Ronny Cox.

Presumably writer Victor Gischler doesn’t have a Deliverance arc in mind—not sure why I’m saying “presumably,” the series runs five issues; there’s plenty of time. But it seems like there will be some warning, as one of Gischler’s best traits on display here is the way he foreshadows and forecasts with just the right amount of pay-off in the end. He forecasts where these characters, based on just a bit of exposition, are inevitably going to lead.

The narrator isn’t sure about letting the pro-fighter guy play alpha but he lets him do it because the narrator is just Jon Voight and not Burt Reynolds. It’ll no doubt get them into more trouble later; this issue most of the trouble comes with the locals, meaning the folks who work at the resort but obviously don’t get to leave or eat in the resort. The fighter gets the heroes into a bit of a pickle before the narrator’s able to talk him down, but it turns out pissing off the staff at a resort with dinosaurs isn’t the way to go.

Gischler’s plotting is great, his characters are fine (we’ll see going forward if he can get away with them being caricatures, albeit with a lot of detail), and the hook is rock solid.

Niko Walker’s art could be a lot better—Mann’s World is another book where the digital colors (courtesy Snakebite Cortez) have to do a lot of perspective work, which isn’t great. But it reads fast enough you don’t dwell on the wanting panels. The figures are just way too inconsistent.

The art’s bearable thanks to Gischler’s writing, so as long as it stays strong, World should be okay. Enough. The cliffhanger—entirely predictable, entirely forecasted—is still just right thanks to Gischler’s superb plotting.