The sideshow of Quantum and Woody
While writing issue #7 or 8, Lynette Thompson called and said something about naming the goat. “What goat?” I asked. I had completely forgotten about the goat, but he had become the hit of the office (at least to Fabian).—Christopher j Priest
The goat is just a small character among many, but probably the most eye-catching. A goat (aptly named Vincent Van Goat by Woody) in a cape and mask is rather unusual. Especially for a goat without superpowers besides eating pizza. Yeas, it irks Eric quite a bit in the same way small things friends does.
They can’t help it, but for better and worse everyone they meet and befriends gets sucked into their superherodom vortex. Warrant, who worked with their fathers and got superpowers in the same accident that looked the wristbands on their arms, also goes diehard into the hero-business. Of course, Warrant is more of a scientist and as such he’s not prone to jump into the fray like a gung-ho Eric or a Woody high on action-movies.
Amy Fishbein survives, but she’s probably the only one who manages to escape relatively unharmed by abandoning her two childhood-friends. All other people they meet—be it FBI agents, parents, or comic book editors—ends tangled up in their now complex lives. Some of them more willingly than others.
It’s nothing they can do about it except trying to accept it. In the beginning Woody seems to have easier to do this than Eric, but as the series progressed it was Woody who had to face reality. Not only when he in Eric’s body tries to avenge a dead friend by beating up her abusive boyfriend in prison and first then finds out that the body he’s wearing has a heart problem. And then, almost immediately after that Taylor, his “Robin” if you might call him that, dies at the hands of someone they’ve pissed of along the way.
All this strain from both internal and external factors leads to the inevitable break-up. They might repeat “we’re not a couple!” pretty often, and while it’s true from the most obvious point of view, they do care for each other and accept the quirks and stupidities the other is responsible for. So when Eric goes too far into the hero business after the split, it’s up to Woody to pull him back, no matter what the cost, no matter what obstacles are in the way. Relations between two different-yet-so-alike main characters have never been done better than here, at least not in this comic genre. Most never even gets close to this good.
Cancelling this was a naughty thing to do.
Anyway, I said to keep up the great work on the look back at Quantum and Woody I’d say it’’s one of my favorite series and your doing a great job covering it.
I got the entire series for like $20 on ebay one day. The only thing I think I’m missing is the goat issue.
— Shane (@ 14. February 2005, 09:44)
If you got #1-21 + #32 then you got them all. Read any of the “spinoffs” such as Solar or what the other one was called? (Perhaps not spinoffs really, but more set in the same universe.) I want to know if it’s worth to track down.
— Nicklas (@ 15. February 2005, 03:03)
— Shane (@ 10. April 2005, 07:36)