Batman/Elmer Fudd #1

Recently (like last week, at least when I wrote this), Comixology were doing some sort of sale which included both Batman/Elmer Fudd #1 and the Swamp Thing Winter Special for £0.69/$0.99. Now, seeing as they were on my wishlist (having been amongst the top 100 comics of 2018 on the Professor Thorgi Youtube Channel), I decided I'd spend a little bit of the my spare change and nab them both while they were cheaper.

Batman/Elmer Fudd #1

And while, I haven't yet checked out Swamp Thing, a few nights ago (while waiting for the washing to finish) I decided to have a read at this Bats/Elmer combo and see what it's like....

..... and it's pretty darn fun!!

Batman/Elmer Fudd #1 is a very noir-esque tale which follows the latter as he goes about 'hunting wabbits' in an effort to avenge the murder of his love, Silver St Cloud. However, upon finding his prey, Bugs 'the bunny' others Fudd the name of the man who hired him to save his own skin: Silver's ex-lover, Bruce Wayne. But when Batman swoops in to confront Fudd's mission, the two must set aside their differences in order to get to the truth.

Now, as I read this, all I could think was how Fudd centric King's story was. However, that is in no way a bad think as I thought Elmer Fudd was portrayed as an immensely competent character (albeit rather gullible) who fit so perfectly in this Batman/noir world. Of course, this was probably helped by Lee Weeks gorgeous art as he produces a really good Noir atmosphere with his art (which I now recall from Daredevil: Dark Nights).

Elmer Fudd appears to be
one of the few characters who
can go toe to toe with Batman.

And then there's the cameos. I know looney toons has a large array of four characters but I didn't realise how many until I tried yes song them all here. Bugs Bunny is, naturally, the biggest here and his place as the antagonist makes sense, but I never realised what a nasty piece of work he actually is until reading this made me think back. All the other characters, meanwhile, aren't as well fleshed out but it was fun to read through and connect the dots between their regular characters and who they are here.

Meanwhile, the backup story, which is a rehash of the 'Duck Season, Rabbit Season' cartoon but mixed with Batman, is quite different in terms of it's tone. However it was still quite a giggle, with King seemingly 'getting' the humour of those old cartoons down perfectly.

In the end, while it probably wasn't as thought provoking as some of my other recent reads, I really enjoyed this incredibly fun and beautifully drawn story. In fact, if reading this comic has taught me anything, it's that Elmer Fudd is actually an incredibly compelling character to follow and makes me see his cartoon appearances, while still antagonistic, in a whole new light. If DC made a mini-series following this rendition of the character (ideally with King writing), I would not be against it.