Title: "Far Lap"

Writers: Jennifer Moore & Sean Carolan
Pencillers: Leo Batic & Walter Carzon
Inker: Jim Amash
Letterer: P. Felix
Colorist: B. LeRose
Cover: Leo Batic & Horacio Ottolini

Release Date: February 16th, 2000
Cover Price: $1.99 U.S./ $2.85 Canada

Summary:
All the prime A! cast members are invited to participate in a cross-country race by a Mysterious Benefactor. Who it is turns out to be quite a shock…

Description:  
The Warners, the Squirrels, the mice, Minerva, Scratchy & Hello Nurse, Plotz, and the Hippos all get invited to a cross-country race. Each letter has a different prize listed—one that would most interest that character. They're off, and the usual hijinks ensue, until they reach the finish line—and Walter Wolf, airborne from an earlier encounter with Slappy, crashes past the line, winning. It turns out that the Mysterious Benefactor is Brain himself, whose car was actually a machine that was repairing the ozone all along. He sponsored the race to gain access to the fuel the machine needed. But since there's no prize, the crew simply flattens him with an anvil and goes along their way, despite his intentions…

Cameos include the Mime and Rita & Runt. The Goodfeathers are inexplicably short-shrifted.

Take a look at the crowd on page 3, and see if you can find: Groucho Marx (possibly), Manny Wurds (# 51), Sid & Beanie, "The Hospitalizer" (# 16), Alfred Nobel (# 39), Pretty Kitty (# 38), Newt (badly miscolored), Freakazoid (also badly miscolored), "The Nutcracker" & "Foamin' Mad McGillicutty" (# 16), Dot's Pet, Space Ghost (?!?), DaBurger manager & employee (# 22), and Snowball & the Godpigeon (both badly miscolored).

Pages (out of 32): 22 pp.

Quote of the Story:
[The Warners read the prize on their invite…]

DOT: "…our weight in bubble wrap!!"

WAKKO: *Gasp!* The mother lode!

Review:
After being rather let down by the film Wakko's Wish, I was sort of hoping that this story would do a somewhat better job of giving the A! cast a decent finale (especially with Carolan & Moore at the helm). Unfortunately, they hand us one of their rare disappointments. Not bad, just—disappointing. I was hoping for a story that stayed true to the zany/funny A! spirit, but still had a sort of "special" feel to it. The race premise had some possibilities, and the "Mysterious Benefactor" subplot opened the door for some great creativity. Unfortunately, all potential that this story had is more or less wasted—the whole thing is pretty much just a bunch of gags with the cast doing what they always do, with nothing to make this final issue really special. To make it worse, the "Mysterious Benefactor," the only element that kept me interested in the story until the end, turned out to be another dud. The ending is a total letdown—the mice's actions in the rest of the story don't make any sense when viewed through this light. True, they made it that way so we wouldn't suspect them, but it still doesn't make any sense.

Still, there's some of Carolan & Moore's usual humor (albeit too little of it), which makes this story a bit more enjoyable than it would be…well, c'est la vie…

Rating: ˝