Review by Karl Verhoven

Bobbletown was a pretty peaceful place until aliens started arriving from space, each of them intent on conquering the planet.

Jamie Smart delivers a great opening episode, first defining some threatening boastful aliens, and then revealing at the end that the Megalomaniacs might have a better chance of fulfilling their missions were they not all roughly the size of a football. It surprises them, but such is their megalomania it doesn’t put them off their mission.

Whether by accident or design, Megalomaniacs is a pretty accurate alternate version of the 1960s origin of the Justice League where different looking aliens transform humans into armies resembling them. Instead of superheroes coming together to defeat them, though, it’s ordinary humans taking on the Megalomaniacs. Thankfully, basic incompetence also plays a large part.

Each megalomanic is introduced via the equivalent of a trading card illustration, although the form more resembles a beermat than a card. Given Smart’s already established as the greatest creative mind UK children’s comics have seen in decades, the aliens are many and varied from a giant eyeball to a mechanical cat, via a talking fist (with an East Enders accent). Based on number of appearances alone, Smart’s favourite seems to be the vampiric Lord Skull, fond of spouting his own superiority in Eastern European accented dialogue. “You insolent hand! I am Lord Skull, ze future conqueror of Earth!” is a standard dialogue, in one case brilliantly followed with “Even though I am currently sitting in a river of *heurgh* human filth!!” Yes, the fart and poo jokes guaranteed to cause youthful sniggers are as essential here as in Bunny vs. Monkey.

Smart draws this in the same energetic way, with stupified human victims and the occasional clever child, throwing in plenty of small visual jokes as mayhem accelerates. While some megalomaniacs defy categorisation, most look similar to the animals populating Bunny vs. Monkey, and many that don’t also play to Smart’s strengths by being blobby and/or disgusting.

Most important is that Megalomaniacs is very funny, even though most readers aren’t going to be able to hear the dialogue as read by the cast of Monty Python: “I am ze Dark Overlord”. “You’re a rude little weirdo”. By the end of the book Smart has introduced 25 of the tyrannical creatures and despite setback after setback in Bobbletown alone they’re still convinced they can take over Earth. Every kid will love watching them try, and so should most adults.