Issue Description

This story is told by Jackie as a flashback.  We see him collecting firewood on his own, on a deserted jungle island.  He misses his brothers: Bruce was killed last issue, and he was separated from the others.
 
The hamsters had been fighting Infidel Castro, who left them alone in an underwater base.  They find a room of SCUBA equipment and swim out to retrieve Bruce's body.  They check him on the medical equipment in the lab, but he is flatlined.
 
The others go off to grieve.  However, a shadowy figure breaks out of a container in the lab and does something to Bruce's body, and we hear the heart monitor start to beep again.  The others hear a loud buzz and, assuming the worst, run to grab Bruce's body and get out.  However, the lab has been locked, and they have to leave without it.
 
They get in undersea sleds and rocket off.  The lab explodes, and they are knocked out and separated.
 
Jackie ends up on his island.  He is having difficulty grappling with the situation, and finally carves a grave marker for his dead (?) brother.  Chuck is rescued by some Russians and Clint ends up on a mafia party boat.
 
The comic also features a back-up strip called "Ronnie & Gorbie," a satire on Reagan and Gorbachev during the Cold War.

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