Review Detail
Middle Grade Fiction
162
Things blow up! A lot!
Overall rating
3.8
Plot
3.0
Characters
4.0
Writing Style
4.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
4.0
It is of note that even the publisher's official listings do not give a synopsis of this story. Since my reading of the series has been spotty (1-7 and 10), I found myself at a little bit of a loss as to who some characters were and what was going on. Perhaps I should watch the Major Motion Picture in order to catch up.
Mr. Wolf and Mr. Snake are bound and determined to break records and become hugely famous by robbing twenty one banks in twenty one days, but when they enter the bank, they are confronted with a giant needletoothed serpent who speaks in all capital demonic font and threatens to make them suffer. He and his multiple minions, however, are thwarted when new and improved versions of the original Bad Guys show up. They have all communed with The One, who has bestowed awesome powers on them, so they are now champions of time and space and have no limits. Legs now has a bit of Fidel Castro look and is known as The General. Mr. Snake's father Papa Alpha is a head in a jar. Joy is pure positive energy... but with laser eyes. The Hands of Magnificence are even larger sentient... butt cheeks? And Delores Gristlewurst, aka The Tiffinator, has Buck in a necklace as well as a fake eye patch. What was a short time for Mr. Wolf was eons for this group, who have arrived back just in the nick of time to help. There is an epic battle, and Papa Alpha turns their nemesis into a spoon. The Tiffinator uses her powers to reduce some of the other combatants to their essential selves, who are sweet and offer the Bad Guys cookies. There are a lot of battles, and each one is perhaps the last one... until it's not. In the tradition of Batman, there are zaps and arrs and urgghhhs galore, and eventually someone gets hurt. Mr. Wolf is on the ropes, refusing to join forces with evil, when the appearance of Milt saves him. Milt woobs up a storm until he calls (or becomes?) The One. Who now has a mullet. The One stops the fighting and tells Ellen that she is her hero. The minions all turn back into their true selves, which all seem to be younger, cuter versions of the Bad Guys. Everyone is ready to go home, but a last minute attack from the serpent leaves things in question, and makes book twenty a necessity.
Mr. Wolf and Mr. Snake are bound and determined to break records and become hugely famous by robbing twenty one banks in twenty one days, but when they enter the bank, they are confronted with a giant needletoothed serpent who speaks in all capital demonic font and threatens to make them suffer. He and his multiple minions, however, are thwarted when new and improved versions of the original Bad Guys show up. They have all communed with The One, who has bestowed awesome powers on them, so they are now champions of time and space and have no limits. Legs now has a bit of Fidel Castro look and is known as The General. Mr. Snake's father Papa Alpha is a head in a jar. Joy is pure positive energy... but with laser eyes. The Hands of Magnificence are even larger sentient... butt cheeks? And Delores Gristlewurst, aka The Tiffinator, has Buck in a necklace as well as a fake eye patch. What was a short time for Mr. Wolf was eons for this group, who have arrived back just in the nick of time to help. There is an epic battle, and Papa Alpha turns their nemesis into a spoon. The Tiffinator uses her powers to reduce some of the other combatants to their essential selves, who are sweet and offer the Bad Guys cookies. There are a lot of battles, and each one is perhaps the last one... until it's not. In the tradition of Batman, there are zaps and arrs and urgghhhs galore, and eventually someone gets hurt. Mr. Wolf is on the ropes, refusing to join forces with evil, when the appearance of Milt saves him. Milt woobs up a storm until he calls (or becomes?) The One. Who now has a mullet. The One stops the fighting and tells Ellen that she is her hero. The minions all turn back into their true selves, which all seem to be younger, cuter versions of the Bad Guys. Everyone is ready to go home, but a last minute attack from the serpent leaves things in question, and makes book twenty a necessity.
Good Points
The appeal of this series is, of course, the nonstop goofiness, and this book has that in spades. Readers who have devoured each book in the series multiple times (and I know many of these personally) will be able to identify the characters much better than I can, and will fully understand their plot and developmental arcs in a way that I don't. It was good to see that no matter what their incarnation, Wolf and Snake (Cedric) remain friends.
Like Barnett and Harris' The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza or Angleberger's Two-Headed Chicken, the Bad Guys series was not written for old ladies like myself who were raised on Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. It was written for elementary school students who watch Tik Tok videos of exploding Mentos in cans of pop and learned to read from Krosoczka Lunch Lady books or Geronimo Stilton titles. As such, it is the perfect giggle producing book to read under the covers (by the light of a cell phone?) or to snigger over with friends. It's even better because the grown ups don't understand it!
Like Barnett and Harris' The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza or Angleberger's Two-Headed Chicken, the Bad Guys series was not written for old ladies like myself who were raised on Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. It was written for elementary school students who watch Tik Tok videos of exploding Mentos in cans of pop and learned to read from Krosoczka Lunch Lady books or Geronimo Stilton titles. As such, it is the perfect giggle producing book to read under the covers (by the light of a cell phone?) or to snigger over with friends. It's even better because the grown ups don't understand it!
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