Big Trouble in Little China (Legacy Edition Book Two)
I enjoyed the first volume of this series so much that two years later I had no trouble remembering where it left off: with Jack Burton being transported into the twenty-first century as a roadside attraction. Usually two years is more than long enough for me to forget plot lines entirely.
This collection contains three main storylines. In the first, after being brought out of suspended animation in the year 2015, Jack meets up with some of his old pals (and their children), and gets involved in a plot to take down a billionaire who collects pop culture artefacts from the 1980s. One such artefact being Jack’s rig the Pork Chop Express.
We’re introduced here to the girl who will become Jack’s new sidekick, his buddy Wang’s daughter Winona. Though of course Winona thinks of herself as more than a sidekick, and it’s her skill in martial arts that saves Jack’s bacon more often than he saves her. She’s also helpful in explaining the changes that have taken place in America since the Reagan years, which is the source of lots of the usual kinds of jokes stemming from Jack and Winona speaking what amount to different languages.
The second story has Jack and Winona and the rest of the gang heading off to Macao to take part in a poker tournament and rescue Margo Litzenberger from Koschei the Deathless. Here they are reunited with Egg Shen, who inadvertently sends Jack and Winona back to 1906 San Francisco, just before the earthquake is about to hit. This marks the beginning of the third story. In San Francisco Jack and Winona meet a younger Egg Shen and also get the origin story for the evil wizard Lo Pan before sorting out their respective timelines.
I liked this just as much as the first volume. The period gags are all on point, from the A-Team spin-off in the first story, to the Harry Potter kid in Macao, to Jack’s ongoing hunt for a payphone. And plot-wise it keeps spinning off in all kinds of crazy directions, including a crossover event revisiting scenes from the movie. The only place it dragged for me was in the primer on the rules of Texas hold’em, as presented by the Three Storms. And I guess the land developer/casino operator who becomes a nativist politician in San Francisco was a bit unnecessary. It’s interesting to note how often this character kept popping up in comics around this time.
Alex Good 
Good thing you provided that link to Vol 1, because “I” didn’t remember it at all 😉
I looked this up on Amazon. They want $130 for this volume and Vol 3 isn’t even available. You might be sitting on a gold mine with these…
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I’m rich!
And you’re up way too early!
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I guess you’ve won the comic lottery.
Yeah, I had an eye injection today and the pain reliever wore off around midnight.
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Ouch! That sounds terrible.
At least you don’t have to get up early tomorrow . . . or this morning I mean.
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Yeah, once the ibuprofen kicks in, I’ll be back to sleep.
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Same here. Taking pills for my back.
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Uh oh, your back go out again? It seems like that just happened. Or is my remembrance going?
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No you remember right but it’s not going out again but still out. Been six weeks now. Finally gave up and made a doctor’s appointment for next week. It’s in bad shape. Not agonizing pain, but real limitations on what I can do. Can’t sit down much at all, which makes writing up posts (for example) difficult. Spend a lot of time in bed, which does mean I’m reading a lot. So there’s some silver lining.
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Ooooph. My sympathies. I hope the dr’s visit will bring some relief.
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Doctor won’t be able to do anything but schedule me for an MRI. That’s the only thing that will tell me what’s wrong. Oh well.
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Oh, so the dr visit is just the start of the journey. Oh man, that really stinks. Especially at this time of year.
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Have you got volume 3 as well?
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Not yet. I only pick up graphic novels if I can get them on sale at a big discount because they’re really pricey. Or I get them out of the library. Library doesn’t have it and I haven’t seen it on sale yet so still waiting.
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Is the 3rd one new then?
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Oh no I think these have all been out for a while now.
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Also by the by, I posted the bookmarkss to you last week- by Royal Mail so they could arrive anytime between now and next Christmas 🙄, let me know if/when they do 😊
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Yay! Will do!
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