Perhapanauts #3 (5/10)

Writer: Todd Dezago
Artist: Craig Rousseau
published by Dark Horse, copyright Dezago & Rousseau, $2.99
creator owned

Story:
There's 3 stories in this one. The first finished off the plot from #1 and #2, with MG getting back from the dimension they sent him to in order to get rid of the Chimera. The middle story is about Karl, a moth creature able to induce fear, which accidentally took out Hammerskold's team. The final story is a prologue to the next issue, wherein a Philippine man is chased by a female vampire creature.

Evaluation:
All three stories are ably told, but the result is still a bit of a mess. Especially since the first story wastes 2 pages on re-capping the events from last issue and nothing really happens in the bit from the final story. Plus, the plot of the middle story is rather dull: Karl, the moth creature paralyses everyone with fear, psychics go in and talk to it. Karl relaxes instantly, we're told how Hammerskold drove Karl to this point and that's it.
In short, the plotting sucks. Which in turn means the character comedy has to save the day. Unfortunately there's not a lot of comedy in the issue, and there's not a lot of characterisation beyond the usual "everybody doing their thing".
For me, this issue killed my interest in the series, as it now seems clear that things will continue in the same vein: Wacky adventures that don't make a lot of sense, comedy derived almost entirely from the characters being freaks and a token long-term subplot from MG's real identity and his love interest in Arisa. The execution is passable but unspectacular, and so the book does next to nothing for me. Which is a bit odd in that I quite enjoyed Buffy and Angel, which at first glance would seem to consist of much the same elements. However, Buffy always had some grounding in high-school stuff from real life and the monster stuff was mostly an exaggeration of these real issue (with some very crude metaphors) and the series was about the characters dealing with these warped versions of normal teenage life (and kicking ass). Perhapanauts lacks that grounding in real world matters, and with the characters being as excessively freakish as they are, it's not going to get it any time soon. And so, unconnected, it's just a bunch of weird stuff, weird for its own sake, but again not extreme enough to make it worthwhile on its own.
Sandman or Shade the Changing man did that latter very well. Even without the deeper stuff, some of the stories where interesting just because they were really strange and each page potentially held something entirely new. Compared to that, the Karl story this issue about a clumsy outcast striking out and being calmed by people telling him they like him is very dull.
Too dull to waste anymore time with this series.