BARON GONG BATTLE: Volume 1

Readers may wonder if Taguchi's ultraviolent sci-fi actioner is meant to be a parody. The title character is the über-buff protagonist that one expects from series like this, and he totes many a big gun in his quest to scourge the Earth of "Neo-Humes," monstrous progeny of an ancient evil and the male participants in a "sinister Nazi experiment" from WWII. Baron Gong's campaign against these creatures is punctuated by stale and gratuitously profane tough-guy histrionics, along with a story twist relating to the hero that readers will see coming a mile away. What little plot there is gets the basic details out of the way at breakneck speed, thereby wasting little time between gory action, illustrations of a policewoman in her skivvies or nude in the shower, and idiotic dialogue. Shape-shifting living weapons, dismemberments, androgynous monsters, car crashes and stereotypical homosexuals are all elements of this over-the-top stew. If the creator's goal was to pen something in the "so bad that it's good" genre, then he has succeeded with flying colors; if not, he has created a triumph of trash that will amuse readers familiar with such excesses. (Feb.)