On Earth, Norman Walters rushes to the theater where his girlfriend Abigale is in charge of a pageant. Arriving there he is introduced to one of the models, named Tiffany, who is nervous because her father is going to be watching the show. Abigale wants Norman to give her some words of advice because he's "sensitive." What follows is a series of misunderstandings and confusion that ends with Tiffany's father yelling at Norman, and BLAMO! That's all it takes to set Norman off and make him travel to a new world as Raver.

He ends up on a barren world where giant monsters in thongs force humans into capturing and throwing giant insects into bon fires. After stumbling around, making a whole bunch of quotes and getting attacked by everybody, Raver finally realizes his powers are that of empathy. He learns that the planet is really alive, and that the human's are really anti-bodies, commanded by the monsters

to destroy the bugs, which are an invading body. However, the monsters are all fucked up and have gone whip happy, brutalizing their defenders until they finally drop dead.

Raver uses his empathic powers to show the monsters that they don't have to whip their protectors, by appealing to the human heads (that resemble the models in the fashion show) that live inside the monsters mouths.

With his mission accomplished, Raver is returned to his own world where he straighten things out and Tiffany makes peace with her father. After the pageant., Abigale and Norman go home.

And Now It's Review Time:

I think somebody needs to send out a memo, a memo to everybody that has ever been even remotely involved with any official Star Trek related project, that memo should read:

REMEMBER: JUST BECAUSE YOU WERE ON STAR TREK DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN WRITE SCIENCE FICTION!

I don't know what Walter Koenig was thinking when he came up with this one, because the story is so unremarkable it's not even funny.

The first thing I'm going to have to start pointing out is the entire cliche that the Raver character is. I mean for starters, I have to ask why he has the last named Walters. Is that Mr. Koenig's attempt at projecting? Certainly a more subtle way to putting yourself into a comic book (unlike something more heavy handed like Brain Pulido's fucking resemblance to Evil Ernie) but I have to point out that usually when a good comic book writer projects some of his own self into a character, the do it in such a way that isn't so blatantly obvious.

The way the story reads, you wouldn't understand entirely what the fuck is going on unless you took the time to read the summary of the series on the inside cover. Which if it took me over 15 years to notice the fucking thing was there to begin with, probably a lot of people who picked up this issue on a whim probably didn't notice it off the bat either and wondered "what the fuck is this?"

The opening page where Walters is walking through the street lost in thought and missing everything from speeding cars to ninjas fighting in the alley, should be a great indication that what your reading is going to be absolute garbage. I mean, who the fuck arbitrarily tosses in ninjas fighting in an alley for no particular reason?

Another weak point of the story is that there is almost zero characterization, all we know about Norman is that he's a fragile, push over who is, if you believe what the other characters say: sensitive. Not to mention the scenes where Norman interacts with other characters reads like a really bad Woody Allen script.

Then there's the time he spends as Raver, which features dialogue which amounts to three things: Raver making quotes that vaguely have some context with what is going on, Raver wondering what the hell his powers are, and Raver wondering what is going on on the planet he created.

First of all, the quotes, okay Mr. Koenig, you've read a lot of interesting quotes, but do you have to regurgitate them in your story? No kidding, there are nine different quotes that are made in

this story. Three in one panel even. Given that the comic itself is 24 pages, most of which are just filled with action shots, it doesn't give your story much substance.

There is almost little to no development to the character, I'm not compelled to give a shit about the character, and the conflict is so mind-numbingly banal, that having little to no dialogue to accompany the series of panels is actually a small mercy, because judging from Koenig's writing, any more writing added to the story would probably make it more dull and boring.

And while there is some foregone conclusion with the whole "saving an alien world" thing, the whole conflict that causes Walters to create this world ends on a rather anti-climatic note. In fact, they resolve it all in a quick page and a half wrap up at the end of the issue. And the whole time you would expect that Norman is going to say something profound that will inspire this girl to go and perform in this pageant, and his girlfriend says everything for him. So not only does Koenig not develop his characters, but he doesn't refine and allow them to grow. They just end up going about this same merry loop.

On top of it, you don't see the resulting pageant, or how daddy reacts to his daughters performance.

But enough about the poor writing, let's take a look at the next item: The art.

Like a lot of artists that drew for independent comics at the time, artist Dan Day suffered from the same problems that your average Jim Lee or Rob Liefeld had: No background syndrome. In fact most of the panels in this comic have no backgrounds to speak of. The few that do are the only thing keeping you from figuring that the story is taking place in a mono-color void. I mean come on, this wasn't the silver age of comics (Where it wasn't uncommon that there were lack of backgrounds due to the limitations of the craft at that time) this was done in the 90's where artists could take advantage of modern photographic, copying, and computer technology.

The art also isn't very impressive, or awe inspiring, his

proportions are way off, and not in the typical fashion of the era, but in a sloppy just started kind of way. Oh and how sexy is it drawing a soulless woman in a bikini that must have been stylish in the 1950's, picking her bottoms out of her ass? Well if the script called for it or not, Dan Day drew it in the main splash page. Feast your eyes on that!

Raver's design, single colored uniform, boots, belt and trench coat has to be one of the most blandest character designs I've ever seen in quite some time as well.

All in all, a very boring comic, with bad art, and an even worse story. Anyone who fell for the "2nd Sensational Issue!" tag on the front cover was the victim of false advertising.

What the Heck Happened to Raver after This?:

Like I said before, Raver only lasted 3 issues, what little information I can find on the internet about this series suggests that perhaps Malibu had slated an on going series, or at least one-shot or another mini-series, but that never came about. Either because they had the common sense to realize that Raver wasn't that great a story, or it was due to the Marvel buy-out that happened the year after.

I couldn't tell you where the Raver story went because I don't really feel like scouring around to find a copy of the last issue (much like I couldn't care to pick up the first one too might I add), but judging from the cover I found online (pictured below), you don't really have to wonder why this series couldn't sustain itself.

From what evidence I can see (and the cover to issue 3 of Raver is but one of many), I have to wonder if Malibu comics ever came up with any original ideas? All their titles seemed to rip off some other comic book published by one of the "big two" in the comics biz. I mean, Prime was nothing but a Superman/Shazam rip off. If you can't figure what comic books popularity they were trying to cash in on by creating a series called Ex-Mutants, you probably still write in crayon, and the list goes on..