[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 used to be like you. The bitter, distant, cool act is old, man. We can be better.” — Mr. Gum

While these volumes are nominally Madman comics, a banner running alongside the cover dubs this series “The MADMANiverse Library.” And with the Madman Library Edition Vol. 3, Dark Horse finally starts to make good on that promise by giving us a book with comparatively little Madman in it. Where the first two collections introduced us to Frank Einstein, his world, and his pals, the spotlight shines away from our titular Madman and onto two wildly different casts of characters. The result is a book that never quite gripped my attention, though my eyeballs were happy to go along for the ride.

In both the 15 issues of The Atomics and the seven of Red Rocket 7, Allred’s mastery of dynamic motion is on full display, but the sprawling stories and sweeping casts prove to be almost too much for one book (or this reader) to juggle. Indeed, when I tried to read the book as a pair of narratives, I found my head swimming, flipping back and forth (as only comics can permit) to try to remember who was who, or why things were happening. (Sensibly, the book omits Allred’s recap pages, which usually included a cast of characters, but I wouldn’t have minded one of these pages being reproduced on the flaps of the dust jacket.) At a certain point in each story, I found myself making the conscious decision to read the book as though it were a very good music album being played in the background.

Once I resigned myself to enjoying the vibes rather than digesting a narrative, Atomics landed much better. Back in the first volume, we met Zenelle, Mott the Hoople’s erstwhile bride-to-be. During Zenelle’s pursuit of Mott, she left behind a trail of alien spores that ended up mutating a group of citizens into the Mutant Street Beatniks, who became occasional foils for Madman. (With exposition like that, who could blame me for expecting heady continuity?) Here, however, the Beatniks learn that their mutation is just one step in their evolution, with their leader Mr. Gum encouraging them to learn and control their newfound abilities.

Put another way, Atomics is what would happen if Marvel’s Morlocks decided to become the Fantastic Four, bickering and bantering but ultimately trying their hand at genuine superheroics. And that Kirby influence is strong — in one unforgettable panel, an alien marauder battles the Atomics in a clear restaging of the cover of Fantastic Four #1 (1961), while a few double-page spreads recall Kirby’s swirling composition and efforts at multimedia collage. Even so, however, Allred is careful not to make Atomics too traditional of a superhero comic. After many issues of sci-fi wonder, Mr. Gum wails, “We caught our first bad guy — not the buzz I thought it would be.” And in the final panels of Atomics, after an on-again, off-again rivalry with the zombie-like Cadaver, the team simply walks away from their returning comrades Lazer and Lava Lass, while Cadaver gets the last word, with a meek “Hi” filling his speech bubble.¹

There’s a sense of anticlimax, of Allred struggling against the boundaries of what a superhero story could be. Had the issues been reprinted in publication order, intermingled with last volume’s Madman Comics, we might better understand these last three issues as Allred’s temporary swan song, published after Madman Comics finished its run. I’m reminded again of Kirby, whose Mister Miracle run continued on after the rest of his Fourth World Saga had (for a time) wrapped up; similarly, Allred’s story veers away from the big mythos, detours through a guest appearance from Savage Dragon, and then just sort of stops.

The second half of the book collects Allred’s grand unified theory of rock and roll, Red Rocket 7. Because of the book’s original square-bound publishing dimensions,² Red Rocket 7 only takes up about half of the page, with the bottom half given over to a fun flipbook loop featuring Madman and a cartoon bomb. It’s the sort of whimsical fun I’d been missing through the first half of this volume. While Red Rocket 7 is heady stuff, I almost wish the excess margin had been given over to annotations because Red Rocket 7 may as well be Allred’s Forrest Gump, populated with cameos from every musician you could imagine (and many more that you and I probably don’t even recognize).

On its face, Red Rocket 7 is the story of Seven, one of six clones being pursued by the imperialistic Enfinites — though he’s not doing a terrific job of hiding. Instead of going underground, he bunks with The Beatles, integrates a lunch counter with Elvis Presley, and even inspires David Bowie to rebrand himself as Ziggy Stardust. We learn most of this from reporter Lynn Hayes, who goes on a road trip — and begins to fall in love — with Seven’s clone-brother Five. The point of it all, Five tells Seven after a brotherly skirmish, “It’s our life experiences which make us what and who we are. And what glorious experiences you’ve had.”

I hate to say, “You had to be there,” but even more than most of the Madman Library so far, Red Rocket 7 really feels like describing a dream I had. Seven gets into a pillow fight with Ringo Starr on one page; on another, he’s laughing it up with Sammy Davis, Jr. Among the bonus features in the back of the book, there’s a Sgt. Pepper-esque image featuring many of the rockers who appear in Red Rocket 7, helpfully annotated, but at a scale that makes the image almost impossible to decipher. Indeed, I fairly needed a magnifying glass to read this half of the book (or maybe that’s just the body’s way of reminding me that I’m nearer than not to reading glasses).

But with this desire for greater archival detail, the book on the whole feels as though it’s missing pieces. Red Rocket 7 was part of a thematic trilogy for Allred, with both a record and a film called Astroesque. Yet aside from including Allred’s poster for Astroesque, there’s almost no attention paid to this transmedia storytelling. And there are pages and pages of other drawings of Seven with famous rockstars, but there is no editorial guidance to explain how these disparate pieces were used. (Were they just pin-ups? Promotional material?) Similarly, this volume pointedly does not include Allred’s unused cover to The Atomics #16, which Allred himself described as “the ‘Dragon Goes Bad’ plot twist that is now only available in the ‘Director’s Cut’ in my pounding head…” Perhaps it’s forthcoming in a later volume (each book is lined with reams of Madman pin-ups and posters, and it’s possible I missed it in an earlier volume), but it really seems that this book should have been the best place for it.

At the halfway mark of the Madmaniverse Library, I found myself feeling a little uneasy about the next few volumes. As a celebration of Michael Allred’s distinctive talent, Madman Library Edition Vol. 3 is still worth exploring, but it certainly feels like the volume I am least likely to reread again. Yet I’m heartened to see Frank Einstein front and center in Volume 4, headlining Madman Atomic Comics and spending some quality time with his beloved Joe. See you then.