The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot By Frank Miller and G. Darrow

“Big” Sized paperback: 1569712018, $14.95

In a modern (for the 90s) Tokyo, scientists, foolish with power, successfully recreate primordial ooze, only to discover it’s the perfect host body for an evil, Cthulhu-like (in mindset and motive at least) creature who breaks free and follows the trend of giant monsters rampaging on Tokyo. What’s worse, citizens discover after they’ve thrown everything at it from missiles and tanks to helicopters and super (prototype) boy robots, the creature isn’t just out to destroy humanity, it can infect them, turning them into mutant dinosaur creatures that can further spread the disease, destruction and chaos. In a last ditch effort commanders beg for help from the good old U.S.A. and from the sea comes the Iron-Giant-ish hero, The Big Guy.

All American, a true blue hero, the Big Guy is determined to defeat the evil creature, save the innocents mutated into monsters and uphold decency standards all the while. The prose is a bit pretentious at times, and a bit old fashioned other times, but both reinforce the character of the Big Guy and heroic feel of the tale.

The only bad thing to say is that this two part series went nowhere as a comic, introducing dynamic characters but going no further, and, while the Fox Kids TV show (a mere 26 episodes) was a hilarious, spot on blend of tongue-in-cheek jabs at mechs, robotechnology, speculations on the future, Godzilla-inspired disasters and superhero comics, reading this book is a reminder that the Big Guy and Rusty still hasn’t seen DVD release. Oh well, there’s Youtube.