Crush & Lobo #4

(November 2021)

Poke Poke (Table of Contents: 1)

Crush & Lobo / comic story / 22 pages (report information)

Script

Mariko Tamaki (credited)

Pencils

Amancay Nahuelpan (credited)

Inks

Amancay Nahuelpan (credited)

Colors

Tamra Bonvillain (credited)

Letters

Ariana Maher (credited)

First Line of Dialogue or Text

I've always known I was the sort of person who did better without walls.

Genre

science fiction; superhero

Characters

Crush; Lobo; space-penitentiary robot guards; various inmates at space-penitentiary; Braach (prison inmate and former Yellow Lantern); artistic reptilian inmate; unnamed angry ballpoint-pen-seeking dolphin-like alien inmate; mantidae creature inmate (carnivorous head-eating, praying mantis-like alien); Katie (Crush's girlfriend, in flashback only); robot prison therapist; purple-headed, long-nosed therapy patient inmate; "big and scary" alien inmate (looks like Doomsday with purple skin); prison hospital attendant robot; prison administrator (exhibits both male and female appearance characteristics, but with an extra pair of gnarly purple arms); terrified gun shop employees

Synopsis

During their last-issue visit, prison inmate 2981 (aka Lobo) has planted his bio-scan monitor onto his daughter Crush – their common Czarnian DNA making this possible. Now, all prison scan systems and robots regard Crush as inmate Lobo, while the Main Man bails on his daughter and casually strolls out of the prison to ill-gotten freedom. Crush resigns herself to prison life until she maneuvers herself into a situation where medical scanners confirm that she is not Lobo. The prison administrator gives Crush 50 Earth-hours to return Lobo to prison, or an attached device will blow her to atoms.

Reprints

• in Crush & Lobo (DC, 2022 series) ([August] 2022)

Keywords

Czarnians; daughter; escape; father; flashbacks; fourth-wall-breaking; outer space setting; prison; relationship issues; therapy; time-sensitive ultimatum

Indexer Notes

The title, “Poke Poke”, refers to the many times in this story one character gets the attention of another by “poking” them twice on the back. In a nice touch, the lettered title, “Poke Poke”, “pokes” the title and credit box on page two setting it slightly askew.

While the automated systems and robot guards are unable to discern that Crush has been substituted for the escaped Lobo, other inmates have at least an inkling of the swap. One inmate refers to Crush as “New Lobo”, while another calls her “Other Lobo”.