“Bill & Ted’s Most Triumphant Return” #2 fares a bit better than its debut, generating a lot more laughs and character moments that both feel genuinely Bill & Ted. There’s even a couple heartfelt moments that truly resonate, cutting through the bland no-stakes plot and a few confounding choices.
WRITTEN BY: Bryan Lynch & Ryan North
ART BY: Jerry Gaylord & Ian McGinty
PUBLISHER: BOOM! Studios
PRICE: $2.99
RELEASE: April 8, 2015
Bill & Ted are never in any real tangible danger here, there’s no sense of urgency, nothing is at stake. They devote a majority of the issue merely following Chuck De Nomolos around, if anyone pushes the plot forward it’s him, not our heroes. He’s also a bit of a conundrum, the book spends it’s opening pages turning him into a sympathetic character, one who I’m sure many readers and even Bill & Ted themselves could relate to. He’s blamed and mocked for the person he grows up to be, it’s unfair and presented as something he can’t escape. He’s an outsider, no one wants to even sit next to him, let alone interact with him. He has no friends and no love in his life, aside from his family.
In these pages he’s built up to be someone put down by the entire world and damned for events that haven’t even come to pass. Now you’re thinking, where did it all go so wrong for this kid? Who or what sent him down this path of universal ridicule? Well as it turns out he’s just plain bad, he was/is/will always be evil. It makes for a dull and tedious villain, who’s got no redeeming features.
On the flip side of this Bill & Ted make it their mission to help him find friendship. Their honest enthusiasm towards trying to improve De Nomolos’s life is makes the story worthwhile. They see someone who they should, by all accounts but instead they see someone whose struggling with loneliness. The principles of being rad to each other, no matter who they are is exemplary of what Bill & Ted are all about. A later page has the two reminiscing about their children, which is an excellent surprise that helps keep the books heart in the right place.
Bill & Ted’s Most Triumphant Return is still a bit clunky but it’s now pointed in a much more promising direction.