Reading – Car Warriors #1 (1991)

Published in 1991 under Marvel’s “Epic” imprint, the Car Warriors four issue mini-series (Amazon.com search*) was one of those few times when my love of games and love of comics collided in a very fun way. Sure, I’d read DC’s comics based on the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game (Amazon.com search*), but back in those days it was the Car Wars game that was closer to my heart.

With the newest Mad Max film opening in theaters I thought it could be fun to pull these four issues off of the shelf and give them a read. I think it has been at least a decade since I last opened these books, so let’s take a peek inside and figure out what we’ve got here.

Fantastic Covers!

All four covers are a blast, but it’s only the first two in which the book’s artists — Steve Dillon and Phil Winslade — share the cover duties together. With books three and four Phil Winslade handles all of the cover art, and I think that the two artists working together created far more interesting and enjoyable covers. That first issue cover, above, is quite theatrical in design, showing a scene that doesn’t ever appear in the book. That’s okay, though, because the cover did the necessary work and sold books when the title was on the new releases shelf.

Expanding the Car Wars World

Based on Steve Jackson’s Car Wars game and setting (Amazon.com search*), one of my favorite parts of the Car Warriors comic is how the story adds more depth to the game world. The little things — the above panel, for example, showing kids chasing down serial killer collector cups — are the best parts for world building and bring us ideas and info that were never shared in the games or stories that were published before the comic.

Chevy Vasquez

The main character of the story, Chevy Vasquez, starts the story as a child who watches as his family is murdered. It’s those first six pages of the story that set things in motion and connect to the end of the mini-series, and Vasquez — an autoduellist working as a driver for a powerful religious leader and then a duellist for the “Circus of Doom” — is the first entrant into our larger tale of a race between cities. The entire first issue exists to introduce Vasquez, set up the background for the world and the race (which dominates books three and four in the mini-series), and give us just enough of a taste of the automotive violence to bring us back for more.

Fun, but Not Great

This first issue of the Car Warriors four issue mini-series (Amazon.com search*) is definitely a fun ride. The art’s effective and decent enough (though not my preferred style; even when Dillon went to work on Preacher for DC I still wasn’t all that much a fan of his art style), the story fairly straightforward, and the actual writing’s quite enjoyable.

A single page at the end of the first issue was written especially for the Car Wars game (Amazon.com search*) fans and offers game rules for the vehicle introduced at the end of the story (see above), and overall I can say this is one of those comics you can read for entertainment and soak up casual violence when you need a break from the real world.

A work of art? Yes, but only in the sense that it’s a comic packed with artwork? A masterpiece? Not at all. But it’s fun, and that’s all I really needed from the book.