Review by Frank Plowright

Zac Gorman returns for his final stint as writer of the Rick and Morty comics with a three chapter epic, two self-contained stories and four shorts. All are also found in the hardcover Book One, while the first Compendium is missing the shorts.

‘The Rickfinity Crisis’ is in safe hands, being drawn by CJ Cannon, and jumps immediately into the idea of there being infinite universes with infinite Ricks and Mortys when a beast is set loose through the dimensions aiming to kill every Rick in existence. Who could be behind such an atrocity? Shrewd readers will be able to make a good guess. The Rick who matters has been exploring the dimensions and only ever came across one universe where Rick never existed. It’s a dangerous place, but his only chance of avoiding certain death. It’s a clever plot, but will members of the Smith family behave much like their counterparts whatever the universe? It’s eventually an unusually downbeat story, which is different, but not without a lot of funny moments.

Andrew MacLean draws ‘The Ballfondlers Special’, and the theme doesn’t do him any favours. Gorman’s entire story is devoted to the poor action TV show Rick and Morty occasionally watch, and the basic character design and wobblier art are intended to reflect its low production values. However, without knowing that, the funny action movie parody might just seem to be less proficiently drawn than the remaining content.

Gorman both writes and draws ‘A Very Special Blumbus’ and brings quite an underground cartooning style to the feature. He has the cast in an alternate universe where Blumbus is the winter holiday. It’s like Christmas, but creepier. It’s a funny subversion of the festive season, looking at what matters, but again, very dark.

There are only four of the short stories drawn by Marc Ellerby this time, starting with Summer’s frankly bizarre dream. She definitely has got some things to work out. A parody of It’s A Wonderful Life picks up on the Blumbus traditions from the earlier Christmas story, with the black and white panels reflecting the black and white film. There’s Morty’s chance to gaze into the void, and Gorman bows out with ‘Rick and Jerry’s Day of Fun’, which is exactly as promised and rather sweet.

Volume Two is even slightly better than Volume One as another creative selection of Rick and Morty, and a fine supplement to the TV show. Head for Volume Three.