“Lobster Johnson: Get the Lobster #1†was an underwhelming start to one of Mike Mignola’s most well respected series. With high expectations, issue two has made a lot of improvements, mainly in terms of story.
In this issue, Lobster’s men find out that the wrestlers were being controlled by a remote control. On top of that, the police are coming down hard on Lobster as they continue to track him down. Lobster also tells Tynan to stop writing her expose on him because she is now becoming a target.
The improvements start in the storytelling department. Here the story is much better paced and focused than the first issue. We explore of Lobster’s situation and the mystery at hand. Not to mention that we finally get some tension in the story. Lobster is wanted by the police and they’ll stop at nothing to get him after all.
There is one problem with the story, though. That problem lies with the one history lesson about a pirate that Tynan reads just screams obvious foreshadowing about Lobster’s background. Not to mention it’s one of the oldest plot elements in the book. This plot point can only be more obvious if the comic downright told us the significance of this person.
The art still has some problems that are left over from the first issue. The most glaring problem is the lack of any emotion shown on the characters, especially Tynan. There is one scene where Lobster enters Tynan’s apartment, startles her and both her physical and facial reactions are neutral. There is no indicator that she was startled. The other characters suffer from the same problem. There are also times when characters have a facial expression that is supposed to be surprise but doesn’t quite look right.
“Lobster Johnson: Get the Lobster #2†shows some improvement over #1 despite some shortcomings. If the series improves even more than this could be one of the better “Lobster Johnson†stories.
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