Issue Description

Upon arriving in New York City, the hamsters are given a $50,000 award for stopping the hijackers from issue #1, but the child-like Chuck donates it to charity (much to the dismay of the others, who dream of buying action figures).
 
They get a taxi and ask him to drive them to San Francisco.  The driver balks, but finally agrees upon hearing that they're actually rich and willing to pay.  First, they need some sleep, however, and he takes them to a dive hotel.  Myron, the taxi driver, gets in a fight with some hoods who want to steal his car, and the hamsters help.  Then they all go out dancing in a club, with the exception of Chuck, who stays in the hotel.  He is later visited by 10-foot-tall cockroaches in a cliffhanger appearance.
 
The hamsters get in various hijinks at the club.  Then they decide to become action heroes, enforcing society's moral code, and buy lots of advanced weaponry.  They blow up a porn shop, then they see a woman undressing in public some distance away, and decide to make an example of her.  After being chased by the police, they use plastique to blow her up.  This "woman" which they blow up turns out to be the Statue of Liberty.

This issue also features a significant amount of self-referential humor and appearances by the author and artist, much of which consists of the artist complaining about how the author's work is unfunny and racist.
 
In a back-up story by Kevin Harville and Herb "Chip" Wood, we see the hamsters in a flashback, still in the Himalayas.  Their teacher tells them they must face the unknown, and fight the legendary man of the mountains.  Eventually they find him and defeat him, only to find out that he is actually their teacher in disguise.  His lesson: some people aren't very nice.

Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters (1986)

Publisher

Eclipse

Volume Description

Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters was originally launched as a parody of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, itself somewhat of a parody of normal superhero comics. ARBBH was soon followed by numerous other mutated warrior animals, such as Pre-Teen Dirty Gene Kung Fu Kangaroos or Samurai Penguin. However, ARBBH proved itself to be the most popular of the TMNT clones, and in fact soon took on its own character and vitality beyond its parody roots. ARBBH spun off mini-series in Clint: The Hamster Triumphant and ARBBH 3-D. All together, they sold over 500,000 issues!

ARBBH began as a very self-aware comic, where the characters often talked directly with the writer and artist. It used a lot of gross-out humor and self-deprecation. It had continual jokes about race and sexuality, which were sometimes smart barbs that deftly punctured political correctness, and were sometimes offensive and boorish. At the end, it became much more serious, featuring the death of a main character and real emotional depth.

ARBBH was written by Don Chin, and drawn by several artists with very different styles, including its unique co-creator Parsonavich, as well as some of Sam Kieth's early work, soon after his time on Mage.

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Status: Not in Collection