More than 40 years ago this month, MAD Magazine founder William M. Gaines managed to outrage hundreds of his loyal readers, all by barely lifting a finger. For the April 1974 issue of his happily juvenile comedy rag—a mix of pop-culture parodies, political humor, and sound-effect-saturated comic strips—Gaines’ staff went with a cover illustration guaranteed to shock school teachers and parents around the country: A raised middle finger, accompanied by the declaration that MAD was the “Number One Ecch Magazine.” Gaines had casually approved the image, which he didn’t even find that funny. But when some of the magazine’s nearly 2 million readers began complaining, he wound up personally writing letters of apology. “We put it out, and the roof fell in,” Gaines later said of the issue.

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It’s hard to imagine a similarly outraged reaction to the just-released MAD No. 1, the first issue since its publisher, DC Entertainment, announced a much-needed relaunch. In fact, it’s been years since MAD incited anything approaching controversy. For decades, the magazine has endured a stuck-in-limbo ecch-istence: Circulation numbers steadily declined over the years, and along the way, MAD’s cultural impact was dulled by such comedy progeny as The Simpsons, The Onion, and The Colbert Report—all of which paid homage to MAD, while siphoning away its satirical urgency and shtick-it-to-the-man heterodoxy.

Meanwhile, the magazine couldn’t up with the rapidly metastasizing appetite of the internet, where users demand their satire be as swift and severe as possible (in the early ‘00s, MAD was even lapped online by its long-time imitator Cracked. That’s like The Simpsons being canceled in favor of Fish Police!). A few years ago, the demise of MAD seemed inevitable—the sad end of an already drawn-out drama.

The new MAD—which will be published bimonthly, and goes for $5.99 an issue (kinda cheap!)—will never be able to compete with online comedic first-responders (though the magazine does have plans to launch a Twitch channel, as well as a new podcast). But to succeed in 2018, maybe it doesn’t have to. There’s so much pop culture now, and so much commentary about that culture, that a six-times-a-year spoof-filled digest almost feels like a relief: a safer, saner vantage point from which to view the world.

Besides, it’s a good time to get into the reboot business. The first new issue of MAD is bookended by two peevish parodies: “Star Bores: Half-Assed Jedi” and “Riverdull,” both spoofs of decades-old entities that, in recent years, have strived to forge connections between their past and their future. The new MAD takes a similar approach. The magazine’s redesigned logo is a nod to the one it launched with in 1952, and the issue features such writer-artists as Sergio Aragonés and Al Jaffee—both original members of MAD’s “usual gang of idiots,” and both as scampish and clever as ever (it’s a genuine delight to be reminded that Jaffee, now 97, can still stump you with one of his fold-ins). The long-running “Spy vs. Spy” is still here, as well, with its shoulda-seen-that-coming double-crosses and (literal) eye-popping violence.

But the new MAD also looks and feels very different than the one you grew up with. Printed in full color, MAD No. 1 is heavy on comics, with contributions from writer-artists like Luke McGarry and Bob Fingerman, and a Ready Player One riff written by comic (and comic fan) Brian Posehn. There’s also a “Make America Greet Again” line of Trump-written greeting cards; a guide to “marketing chick flicks to the dude bro demographic” that turns Pitch Perfect into a baseball movie; and several pages of stand-alone single-panel strips that spoof on everything from Tide Pods to gentrification. In the ‘70s, when MAD was at its peak readership, the magazine’s targets were clearly defined: Hollywood phonies, political crooks, and, of course, people who failed to see the lighter side of things. The new MAD lacks some of that righteousness so far, hurling spitballs in as many directions as it can.

And maybe that’s for the best. It doesn’t really matter who MAD is going after, as long it can revive some of that brattiness that made it so potent and polarizing to begin with. The cover of the new MAD is a good start: It once again features a proudly displayed middle digit—this time lodged in the nostril of MAD’s long-time mascot, Alfred E. Neuman. That’s probably not enough to rile up America’s parents the way it did forty years ago. But it’s reassuringly snotty nonetheless.

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