Post Malone’s Big Rig

With gore caking its grill and devil’s blood boiling in the tank, the heaven-sent 18-wheeler starring in musician Malone’s antic and enthusiastically lowbrow metal-as-metal-gets comics debut mows down demon hordes in a besieged medieval Europe. It’s driven by a holy roller sporting scraggly sideburns, a trucker’s cap, and a tragic backstory. Known now only as Trucker (formerly John), the driver antihero hails from a Templar order that somehow boasts a working-class road-warrior division. How exactly Trucker goes from excommunicated priest to ramming this war-truck packed with 21st-century weapons into fiends outside walled cities is not immediately explained. The script surges along through the end-of-days action, inviting readers to roll with it. While the creators make a minor mystery out of their conceit, the focus remains on the mayhem at present. Artist Gooden (Barbaric) excels at toothy beasts, vehicular mayhem, and the pleasures of a winsome Viking witch greeting the demonic host with a chainsaw (“Come get some, you maggot-hearted filth!”). There are promising characterizations within the ensemble that forms around Trucker—and in their tense confrontations with hell’s princes and generals. The episodic storytelling loses some momentum in late chapters. Still, readers who light up at the thought of a rig crashing into Lucifer will relish the frenzy. (Apr.)