Well here we are the final page of Johnny Turbo issue 44. After lying about Sega's ad campaign, quibbling over which 2D shooter is better and trying to explain why one overpriced CD system is better than another, we're left with just one last thing: Violence! Apparently when you can't reason with your competition the rule is to just beat them up, and that's exactly what Johnny Turbo does in the first few frames. The nice thing is that he actually explains why he's beating them up, something that dirty old mugger decided not to do last time I went to New York. If Johnny was a better negotiator than fighter we might have been able to resolve this dispute in a peaceful manner, but this is the United States, and we solve all of our problems by wanton violence.

My favorite line is at when our hero states that you "can't hide from Johnny Turbo!!" Of course they can't, you're the size of a truck and you're wearing green spandex with yellow suspenders. And if that wasn't silly enough, at the end of the comic Johnny states that he still has time to "review" the latest CD games from TTI. While I agree with him that Lords of Thunder is a great game, I have to wonder where his review is printed. I routinely use two to three thousand words in my reviews, and he gets away with only twelve? If he's getting paid by the word then that would explain his stupid costume.

The moral of this story is that Johnny Turbo hates (and battles) Feka because they spread propaganda. Yet isn't that exactly what Johnny Turbo and TTI are doing with this very advertisement? I don't care if it's a two page article that bashes Nintendo or a four page ad that talks about Sega, an advertisement is propaganda, and all of these companies are guilty of trying to spread the word about their system. Honestly there's nothing wrong with that, but let's call a spade a spade. A psychologist may look at Johnny's hostility as an outward display of insecurity. And when it comes right down to it, TTI had a lot to be insecure about. Their CD-based console didn't do very well, so why not lash out at the Sega CD? But then again, here we are 15 years later and Defunct Games covers both the Sega CD and the TurboDuo. So I have to ask you, who's the real winner in this scenario??

FROM: Bad Advertising With Johnny Turbo