[A series on the Madman Library Editions by guest reviewer Zach King. Zach writes about movies at The Cinema King and about comics on Instagram at Dr. King’s Comics.]

“I’m not sure where the reality lies in my life anymore, but it’s awfully exciting, isn’t it? Crazy or not, I’m just along for the ride!” — Frank “Madman” Einstein

If Michael Allred was just warming up in the first Madman Library Edition, this second volume feels a lot more like the conductor moving out of rehearsals and into performance. And in many ways, the Madman Library Edition Vol. 2 feels like Madman at apogee; the comics collected take us through December 2000, on the cusp of a new millennium and a new direction for the Madman universe (or, as the dust jacket dubs it, the “Madmaniverse”).

The book is split almost neatly in half, with ten issues of Madman Comics (1996–2000)¹ at the start and a bevy of crossover tales in the back. If it seems early in a six-volume run to be doing crossovers, recall that Madman debuted in 1992 (or 1990, if you count a short story from Creatures of the Id, later enrolled into Madman’s origin and collected in the first volume). So by 1996–1998, it’s perfectly reasonable for Frank to meet up with the likes of Nexus, the Powers crew, and no less than Superman himself.

In the Madman issues proper, Allred is more confident in his storytelling, primarily in two longer story arcs: “The Exit of Dr. Boiffard” and “G-Men From Hell.” Interstitial episodes still feature the same gonzo energy you know and love, including a Halloween yarn that ends up with the rescue of an amnesiac Santa Claus, but with the longer tales, Allred seems to be channeling his influences more overtly and more passionately. “Exit” begins with Frank shouting down his old pal Dr. Flem, frustrated that no one is trying to find Dr. Boiffard (who disappeared in the last volume after his experiments transformed himself into an enormous brain). These high tensions quickly give way to a spiritual walkabout, with Frank reuniting with Boiffard on the higher plane of existence where the latter has taken up residence. It’s during a pit stop on a deserted island, where Frank meets the shipwrecked Stewie and his aquatic changeling bride Avalon, that Frank begins to ponder the nature of reality while learning from Dr. Boiffard’s evolutionary mistake.

Then, in “G-Men From Hell,” Allred explores tertiary antagonists Agent Crept and Mike Mattress, revealing them to be — as the title promises — federal agents wrongfully condemned to hell but trying to earn their way to heaven. In the first volume, I hadn’t known what to make of these two, who only show up occasionally to sneer at Frank and trade “why-I-oughta”s while their girlfriends hold them back. Here, the pair presents as cursed and tormented, trying to do right by the superhero who never believes them. In a side-splitting opener, a sullen Frank throws a brick at their passing car, shatters a windshield, and takes off running through a cemetery while they give chase. Despite the slapstick comedy and the deeply entrenched noir conventions around the two agents, Allred wrings great pathos from the tension of whether accidental rivals can dig out of their recalcitrant animosity.

Elsewhere, Allred proves a master of juggling emotional modes. The book begins with Frank sulking and shouting, but it is, astonishingly enough, a heartfelt letter from Mott the Hoople (Frank’s alien chum) to Santa Claus that sets everything right. “Dear Santa,” Mott writes in his scratchy penmanship, “I’m not sure you exist, but earth legend seems to dictate that if beings are good, they can write you for gifts and wishes. My adopted family on this, my adopted world, has recently fragmented. I have one simple wish — that we can all be brought together on the day of the Christchild.” He signs it, “Your Fan, Mott (from the planet Hoople),” and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I had to wipe a tear from the corner of my eye.

When we get into the book’s second half, with crossovers aplenty, the reading experience becomes a bit more piecemeal. After 800+ pages of one story right in a row, the crossover specials hop all over the timeline. In Nexus Meets Madman, for example, the futuristic hero Nexus summons the spirit of Frank Einstein via a Madman action figure. The Superman/Madman Hullabaloo!, meanwhile, technically takes place between panels of an earlier issue. Collectors might note that this crossover had its own collection in 1998 before appearing in Dark Horse Comics/DC Comics: Superman in 2016 (alongside Superman vs. Aliens and Superman/Tarzan).

It is this Hullabaloo, I suspect, that might most interest readers of this site, taking place as it does during the peak of the Triangle Era; one of Dr. Emil Hamilton’s experiments goes awry at the exact moment Dr. Flem’s latest project misfires, creating an interdimensional rift that merges and hybridizes Superman and Madman. Frank’s mind is trapped in Metropolis, while Superman’s consciousness is sent to Snap City. Allred has a ball designing mash-up costumes for an all-white Superman and a four-color Madman, and if you’re not having fun by the third chapter, in which Madman plays Twister with Mister Mxyzptlk, I don’t think you’ll enjoy the next four Madman volumes.

Madman Library Edition Vol. 2 also includes a fun two-parter with Bernie Mireault’s hero the Jammer, in which Frank and the Jammer have to rescue M.C. Escher. The story is confusing in a way that ends up not mattering, but I appreciated the jam session (pun intended) that finds Allred drawing Madman on the same panels where Mireault’s drawing the Jammer. The final crossover collected in this volume is a surprisingly mean-spirited Powers piece by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming — such that, in a new preface for this volume, Bendis actually apologizes for the “roast” of creators like Matt Wagner, David Mack, and John Byrne.²

While these Madman Library Editions have been (and will continue to be) exceedingly comprehensive, the volumes have so far prioritized contiguity over continuity, keeping titles together even while the universe expands. Case in point, throughout the later issues of Madman Comics, we see the figure of a blonde woman in a pink shirt. This, Madman fans may know (and as Madman himself notes on-panel), is It Girl, a member of The Atomics. But while The Atomics ran concurrently with these final issues, Library Edition readers will have to wait until the next volume to see what their deal might be. Also on the docket for the next volume is Red Rocket 7, a rock-and-roll act whose marquee appears in the background of a few panels. Those, and more, take center stage in Volume 3.