Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer

    (DC, 1986)
™ and ©1986 DC Comics, Inc.

Fans of the slapstick hero Ambush Bug got a holiday surprise in 1985 when DC published this Christmas special. This special served up the usual Ambush Bug silliness, self-referentialism, and sarcasm. For a start, Ambush Bug somehow finds himself in Viet Nam, where with help of the book’s creative team, he decides to win the war after all. The only effect he winds up having, however, is to terrify a “Hukka” monster, and help get fellow DC comic Atari Force canceled. (We can assume that Ambush Bug’s artist, Keith Giffen, was not a fan of that series.)

In other developments, Ambush Bug’s doll mascot, “Cheeks, the Toy Wonder,” returns from the dead as a zombie-like toy cannibal; Ambush Bug incurs the wrath of the DC continuity police once again; and the artists revolt when they realize that this was meant to be a 40-page special edition, rather than the comparatively easy 28-pagers “those happy artists in Japan do.”
Jump to issue:
  • 1
    #1
    Feb 1986
    Cover: $1.25
    W: Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming, Ernie Colón  ·  A: Keith Giffen, Ernie Colón
    7 copies from $1.20
  • 1/NS
    #1 Newsstand Edition
    Newsstand Edition with cover by Keith Giffen
    Feb 1986
    Cover: $1.25
    W: Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming, Ernie Colón  ·  A: Keith Giffen, Ernie Colón
    1 copy for $7.98