I really liked those goggles! Review of Henchgirl (2017)

  

Front cover of Henchgirl TPB by Dark Horse Comics

This book collects the following comics: the first dozen digital comics published at HenchgirlComic.com

Score (out of 5 Capes)

An at-times charming collection of stories about the life and struggles of Mary Posa and her friends and family.

My Review

2026 marks the 40th anniversary of Dark Horse Comics, surely helping to establish them as one of the most successful non-DC, non-Marvel modern comics publishers.

Their catalog over those years includes some early critical successes like Paul Chadwick's breath-taking Concrete series and some early commercial success with tie-ins to popular movie franchises like Aliens and Predator. More recently, their tie-ins have been in the gaming universe with titles like Assassin's Creed and Halo. And throughout they have made room for innovative graphical storytelling and early-wave Manga.

In honour of their 40th anniversary, I will do a short series of reviews that look at some Dark Horse graphic novels and trade paperbacks.

Starting with Henchgirl!

Created, written and lovingly drawn by Kristen Gudsnuk, Henchgirl is the often hilarious yet tragic story of Mary Posa, a young woman struggling with so many aspects of her early-adulthood life in the big, dangerous metropolis of Crepe City.

She has conflicts with her co-workers, fellow members of the fearsome Butterfly Gang, led by the business-oriented team-leader Monsieur Butterfly.

Her life of crime barely pays her share of the rent, much to the annoyance of her roommates, the young and impressionable Tina and the matronly Sue, who tries to line up job interviews for Mary. Complete with the promise that she'll even be able to begin paying taxes!

She has a complicated relationship with Fred, the decidedly C-list super hero the Mannequin. His out-of-body power leads to a constant need to reglue and patch up cracks that develop in his physical body while he is astral-projecting.

Her relationship with her family is infinitely more complicated. Her famous superhero parents, Flame Girl and El Romancero and her accomplished younger sister Photo Girl (complete with battle cry "Say Cheese!") all find her choice of profession - villainy - to be a family embarrassment to be hidden if at all possible.

Gudsnuk packs so many clever and accidentally funny characters and personalities into these pages that the plot seems almost secondary. It's more a series of Mary's struggles, whether with co-workers in the gang or her secret-identity catering work, or financial needs, or a damaged love-life and even more broken family life.

From alien invasion to time travel to a dystopian future controlled by angry sentient carrots, the larger world keeps colliding with Mary's very basic, very human issues.

The story is at its strongest when it leans into the relationship drama and humour. When it can find its balance, a favourite example being when Henchgirl's goggles are broken in battle and she needs to try a few alternatives out, including a hilarious fake-nose pair of glasses, then it is a joy to read. The more serious the tone becomes, the more Gudsnuk needs to labour and struggle to carry the reader through.

The result is a book that is so much fun, page after page, intermixed with a few stretches that get bogged down in its convoluted attempt to set up the next sequence.

3 capes out of 5 for an innovative, irreverent superhero spoof that sometimes tips too deeply into the silly that the more serious bits struggle for attention.

What I loved

Off-the-wall characters like Carrot Girl

Mary Posa, the Henchgirl, moves in three circles - friends, family, co-workers - each with their own strange idiosyncracies.

Her friends and roommates have powers of their own, like her boyfriend the Mannequin, with the ability to project his aura - great for spying on the bad guys but a little awkward when his physical body remains behind, turned to ceramic. Or, in the panel above, her roommate Tina with the ability to spawn sentient carrots from her arms.

Then there are her parents, Flame Girl and El Romancero, and sister Photo Girl, all much more successful and accomplished on the good guy side than she has managed on the villain side.

And her co-workers in the Butterfly Gang, led by the always scheming Monsieur Butterfly and including her frenemy Coco.

Creator Kristen Gudsnuk populates the world of Crepe City and beyond with an abundance of odd characters, but we never feel overwhelmed or confused as she succeeds in weaving and distinguishing each of them. 

Subtle humour like the iDad tablet

Gudsnuk also fills these pages with countless little moments of subtle humour, often with small twists on something better known. No one in Crepe City, for example, knows who Lois Lane is, but everyone, including the powerful hero Mr. Great Guy, knows and loves the intrepid reporter Lois Street.

Or the wonderful electronic tablet the iDad and its depressing fatherly words.

The relationships with all her odd circles of friends, family and co-workers and the constant little bits of humour drive this story forward so delightfully.

Relationships, dialog and humour drive this story

What I didn't love

Shift from cartoonish to realistic style

Writer and artist Kristen Gudsnuk fills these pages with a light, cartoony style, big eyes, simple and soft shapes. Once in a while, she switches to a more detailed style, replacing the soft edges with more definition, several steps down the road toward a more realism-based look.

It seldom works. It breaks the flow of the visuals throughout the rest of the book and seems to serve no purpose. In the three panels above, Photo Girl holds the same grin in each. The third image breaks from the book's standard visual flair, showing much more detail like individual teeth, beginnings of wrinkles, shading and definition.

But why? Is it a comment on the falseness and superficiality of the character or perhaps the whole family, set as it is in a family fight at a book signing? If so, nothing else picks up the commentary, it merely shifts for a single panel then reverts to conforming with the rest of the visuals. It's a clearly intentional, occasional and jarring stylistic shift.

Weak-hearted gang member defeated

Henchgirl is strong. Not super-strong or anything, but a doctor declares at one point that she has "abnormal strength" and she is not afraid to mix it up. Her battles, fortunately, are infrequent. Gudsnuk does a solid job with the humour, relationships and angst but struggles to portray a convincing battle.

It works best when she weaves her trademark humour into the sequence, as in the panels above. Her out-numbered Butterfly Gang is causing trouble in the turf of the Chanisaw Gang. But when the inevitable confrontation comes, it falls flatter than Mr. Heart Murmur, except for the delicious twist that the big tough is felled by such a common flaw.

Related Reviews

Some other Dark Horse reviews:

Starblazers space manga volume 1

Coming soon: more 40th-Anniversary tribute reviews

Quick Reference Details

Writers: Kristen Gudsnuk
Artists:  Kristen Gudsnuk
Published By:  Dark Horse Comics
Published When:  April 11, 2017
Parental Rating: Teen

Back cover of Henchgirl TPB by Dark Horse Comics

Strong, Sharp, Soft - Claws by Marvel Comics (2006)

  

Front cover of Claws TPB by Marvel Comics

This book collects the following comics: Claws complete mini-series, #1-3

Score (out of 5 Capes)

3.5 / 5 Capes

A fun if very limited 3-issue run collected into one trade-paperback. 

My Review

Logan the Wolverine, flying on an ordinary commercial airline for some reason, has his whole flight gassed and diverted to an isolated island.

Black Cat, hired for a risky heist, is likewise double-crossed, gassed by a fake gem, captured and whisked off to that same island.

Easy as that, two of Marvel Comics' most famous sharp-clawed characters, are turned into prey in a larger plot: rich big-game hunters have paid a pretty penny for the opportunity to hunt and kill our heroes. If they can make it to a beach and a boat on the opposite side of the island, Wolverine and Black Cat are free to go - if the hunt's organizer, Kraven the Hunter, can be believed.

Wolverine and Black Cat fill these pages with Spider-Man-like (and he makes a brief cameo) clever banter and dismissive insults, while trying to survive, turn the tables and get to the bottom of the whole thing - I mean, isn't Kraven dead? If so, how can he be putting on this hunt, and why is he not doing the hunting himself? And what are Arcade and White Rabbit doing at the fringes of the whole affair?

Each of the six hunters on the island has their own unique approach, but their cumulative time in the story amounts to just a handful of pages, and most of them blur into just an amorphous band of hunters. They are quickly forgotten, despite the frightening prospects of the whole setup. 

Given a two-minute head start before the well-armed hunters begin their pursuit, Wolverine and Black Cat face a wide variety of weapons - arrows, bullets, fire, even missiles. But almost always fired from a faceless opponent. When the giant robots appear, we start to understand that there is a larger plot afoot, a true mastermind beyond the island's would-be hunters.

Can Wolverine and Black Cat survive? That's the first order of business. Next, can they unmask the mastermind, thwart their plans and ultimately escape with their lives?

The whole story was originally told in three fast-paced limited-series comics, all collected in this single, thin volume. The page count was filled out nicely, though, with an extensive peek into artist Joseph Michael Linsner's sketchbook.

If the extra features text is to be believed, Linsner first had the idea of a Black Cat + Wolverine team-up and even prepared several sketches. He shopped the concept around and landed with writers and frequent collaborators Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. How often have these two worked together? Check out the number of times "with Jimmy Palmiotti" appears on Gray's list of works on Wikipedia!

The result of Linsner's artistic vision and concept, combined with Palmiotti and Gray's plot and pacing, is a brisk, fun, brutal, sassy and sexy story. We are left wishing for more while also gasping for breath.

Linsner's visuals are smooth, blending the razor-sharp claws and muscled machismo with softer, fur-lined cheesecake. He knows how to arrest the eye and uses his artistic control of the project to drive the feel, which matches well the light touch of the narrative by Palmiotti and Gray.

Sure, the plot has some facile moments while, miraculously, all the weapons find their target in Wolverine's flesh while barely scratching the Black Cat. But the rapid-fire and clever banter and the growing romantic tension between Cat and Wolverine gives us a delightful conclusion.

Only three issues? More please! (and, spoiler alert, we will look at the sequel, Claws 2, in a few weeks).

What I loved

Artist sketches of Black Cat

The "special features" add so much to this thin package. Most prominent are the peeks into artist Linsner's sketchbook.

The extensive bonus feature includes dozens of quick concept rough-ins, more refined and inked panels and a handful of finished images. It gives a fun behind-the-scenes peek, shaping proportions, the all-important eyes and mouths, whether a scene works better flowing left-to-right or the opposite.

Artist panel sketches

Linsner clearly had fun on these stories and it shows as he experimented with different poses and arrangements before settling on the ones best known in the published pages. And with so many bonus pages included, we the readers get ample opportunity to admire the process, vision and end result. Wonderful!

What I didn't love

Six useless hunters

The whole plot of the story revolves around Wolverine and Black Cat, kidnapped to an isolated island, attempting to survive and escape while being chased by several wealthy big-game hunters who paid millions each for the privilege.

So it is very frustrating that the hunters are so useless. 

Each apparently has their own favourite weapon or expertise. A handful of them get a brief solo battle with one or both of our clawed heroes, only one of whom shows the least level of competence.

As the central, surface-level plot thread, it is annoying how little time is spent on them and how incapable they are once in the narrative spotlight.

Black Cat and Wolverine are both targets but with different results

There is also a stark difference between the physical suffering Logan must endure while Black Cat finishes with barely any scratches, just a tear or two in her costume. 

Sure, one has legendary mutant healing abilities, and only putting him in a series of battles that end with arrows, bullets, fire even a hungry sea monster taxing the limits of his healing can make this feel like a fair fight.

Except he does very little to protect the Cat - like covering her ears as the missiles approach? Gee thanks, my hero! We don't especially need to see equal harm and equal suffering between our two heroes, but repeated scenes of Wolverine being nearly obliterated while Black Cat gets a new scratch all add up to a ridiculous one-sidedness.

Related Reviews

Wolverine vs the X-Men

Wolverine vs Sabretooth

Quick Reference Details

Writers:  Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray
Artists:  Joseph Michael Linsner
Published By:  Marvel Comics
Published When:  Feb, 2007
Parental Rating: Teen

Back cover of Claws TPB by Marvel Comics

Oh Hera! - Wonder Woman vol 1 Blood (2011)

 

Cover image of Wonder Woman (v4) #1 and this collection

This book collects the following comics: Wonder Woman (vol 4, 2011) #1-6

Score (out of 5 Capes)

Leaning into the gods and myths, this collection holds intense action but is a bit scattershot in the divine aspects. 3 out of 5 Capes.

My Review

The DC Comics New 52-era reboot of Wonder Woman leaned into the Greek mythology side of her origins and history. The result is an intense new beginning, one in which she seems both incredibly skilled and powerful, yet no match for the gods at play.

Author Brian Azzarello throws lots of the pantheon of Greek gods into the first six issues of the ongoing series, collected here. From the start, we meet Hermes and centaurs manufactured from the brutal decapitation of horses. Hera, Strife, Hades, Poseidon, even Zeus himself in flashback all have key roles to play in this drama.

The woman at the centre of the action is Zola, a working-class young woman with questionable taste in men and a history of poor choices. After one such encounter, she finds herself pregnant with the bastard child of Zeus.

Hera, queen of the gods, is protective of her husband and seeks to slay Zola and her unborn child. It is Hera, cloaked in nothing but peacock feathers, who created the centaurs and sent them after Zola. Only the warning intervention of Hermes and the warrior skills of Wonder Woman can save her.

Hera's daughter, Strife, comes to Paradise Island and stirs up plenty of, well, strife, causing Amazon to attack and kill Amazon. But the aftermath of that battle reveals new twists in Wonder Woman's origins - was she really formed of clay? or is there a more carnal explanation?

When Hera herself comes for Queen Hippolyta, Wonder Woman embarks on a risky gambit to trick Poseidon and Hades into turning the tables on her behalf. But can she fulfill her promise and save Zola? The story carries forward into volume 2.

Azzarello's imaginative take on the Greek deities, combined with artist Cliff Chiang's and Tony Akins' visual portrayals leave the reader scratching our head. Some seem very human - Hera in particular has almost perfect human-like beauty beneath her robe of feathers. Others are very different and stand far apart, most of all Poseidon's giant fish-squid hybrid.

Chiang fills his pages with dramatic battles and combat, with layouts and somewhat angular poses that heighten the tension of the moment. The ink-work is especially impressive, the foliage around Paradise Island illustrated in silhouette for example.

Akins, on the final two chapters, brings the colours more into the foregrounds rather than the gradients and background sepias and other tones in Chiang's pages. It dials down the intensity of those pages, giving them more pop and beauty but losing the drama and tension of Chiang's page.

This is a promising reboot, with strong visuals but the story's deities wander in and out of focus, their motives often remain opaque to those of us without more understanding of the Greek roots of these characters.

3 out of 5 Capes.

What I loved

Warrior strength in action, saving Zola

Cliff Chiang's action scenes are filled with intensity and drama. Whether it is Wonder Woman leaping in front of an innocent woman to block the incoming arrows, a hand-to-hand showdown with another Amazonian champion or one of the many other confrontations, Chiang gives us mighty warriors in epic poses and clashes.

He is not afraid of expanding the panel to call out the courage of our hero, nor of fragmenting the page into a sequence of non-stop emotion, aggression and strength. 

Intense hand-to-hand combat

I especially loved the sequence facing a warrior's challenge in the arena. The brilliance of setting the sequence on wooden posts only increases the impressiveness of both these warrior women. And the closeups, cross-panel action and powerful poses make the whole sequence sing.

What I didn't love

Poseidon, the tentacled catfish god?

Writer Brian Azzarello brings the Greek mythology and gods very much to the fore in these pages. Artists Cliff Chiang and Tony Akins then need to convey their divine distance from us mere mortals through their visuals.

The results are a bit of an eye-roll.

Hera, wife of Zeus and queen of the gods, who wears little more than a robe of peacock feathers.

Poseidon, the god of the sea, who surfaces as a giant, catfish-headed and tentacled monstrosity.

Strife, daughter of Hera and general rabble-rouser with her shaved head and shredded cocktail dress.

Those familiar with Greek mythology will shake their heads at some of these divine portrayals.

But those of us not familiar with the source material are left confused by the behaviour and descriptions of these divinities. Are the gaping holes and questions pure carelessness or are they pointing to deeper themes and connections?

We hope for the latter, but it feels more like the former.

Strife and her sarcasm and torn little black dress

Related Reviews

Wonder Woman Earth One volumes 1, 2 and 3

New 52 era Superman / Wonder Woman series 

Lots of appearances in Justice League books over the years

Quick Reference Details

Writers:  Brian Azzarello
Artists:  Cliff Chiang (#1-4), Tony Akins (#5-6)
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  May 2013
Parental Rating: Teen

Huntress and Power Girl - World's Finest vol 1: The Lost Daughters of Earth 2 (2012)

 

Front cover of World's Finest (New 52) volume 1

 

This book collects the following comics: World's Finest (2012) #0-5

Score (out of 5 Capes)

4 Capes out of 5

A fantastic reboot of two established heroes, this book is loads of fun from cover to cover. 4 capes out of 5.

My Review

An ongoing comic book series so bold as to call itself World's Finest better have some darn good stories in its pages. This volume, collecting the first five issues plus a #0 prequel, meets that bar in so many ways.

Writer Paul Levitz reinterprets, in DC Comics New 52 style, the origins of Huntress and Power Girl: They are the Robin, daughter of Batman and Catwoman, and the Supergirl of Earth-2. Thrown through a dimensional portal in the climactic final battle with the forces of Apokolips, they land on Earth-1 and reinvent themselves.

The backbone of the tale is their quest to reopen the portal and return to their home world. A quest that drives them to attempt some pretty amazing things.

Helena, the Robin-turned-Huntress, uses her intelligence and tech savvy to siphon off enough money from certain sources to fund both a fine, globe-trotting lifestyle and the labs, scientists and tech research toward finding a path back home.

Kara, for her part, plays the face of a research organization, a wealthy playgirl out to have fun, push scientific boundaries and make some cash on the way.

It's this ongoing research that brings them to their Tokyo lab to explore the most promising discoveries to date. Except they are met by a rampaging nuclear energy foe calling himself Hakkou. There is clearly more to Hakkou than is revealed in these pages. 

Unfortunately, one of the more frustrating aspects of this book is that Levitz offers all these teasers throughout the book but they never pay off. When the final confrontation arrives, versus the now colossus-sized monster splashing through the Tokyo waterfront and battling the Japanese navy, the ladies find a way to destroy him then fly off all happy with their work. All the plot teasers and questions are immediately forgotten.

The Hakkou arc with all its flashbacks fill the first four chapters. Numbers five and zero set aside the grand battle and fill in lots more of the "how we got here" details, expanding on the flashbacks of the first few issues.

The creative team made a fun choice for those flashbacks. Rather than present them in sepia tones or rounded-corner panels like the recently-reviewed Spider-Gwen book's flashbacks, they switched artists. The result is a fun, flirty, immediately identifiable shift in time and place.

Legendary artist George Perez, who has drawn such classics as New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths (both with Marv Wolfman writing), takes the mainline story. With his decades of practice filling his pages with countless characters, these pages feel almost subdued. But they lack nothing in their power to communicate through his images. Sometimes subtle, sometimes clear as a bell, Perez rises to the occasion and presents gorgeous pictures to illustrate the present.

Kevin Maguire, with a solid portfolio of his own, especially with books like Justice League International, handles the flashbacks. His is arguably the more challenging assignment, showing the growth and trajectory of our heroes over the course of five years. The contrast with Perez and the present panels is immediately recognizable, with his simpler backgrounds and stacked panels of faces and the range of emotions the characters experience, all done with his well-established simple lines.

At heart, Levitz gives us a buddie-story of two friends and partners learning to depend on each other, their relative strengths and weaknesses, and committed to a common goal, wherever pursuit of that goal might take them.

It is a partnership with a stark difference in the power levels between the two, yet to see them work together it is easy to forget that one is nearly invulnerable while the other has no meta-human powers, just courage, intelligence and athleticism. The biggest reminder of this difference is the need for Power Girl to carry - and occasionally drop - Huntress around when they fly to their next destination.

Since issue #0 is all flashback, Maguire draws the whole thing, a tale of their final moments on Earth 2 and their first meeting, forming trust and friendship in the midst of the death and destruction wrought by the invaders from Apokolips.

This is a delightful volume, two strong women and all that they have been through together that has helped them to forge an unbreakable bond and common cause. Solid storytelling, if centred around a so-so villain for several chapters, good banter and eye-pleasing visuals earn this book four capes out of five. 

What I loved

Beautiful, detailed visuals

Every page of this book is a visual feast every bit as rich as the one that our heroines are enjoying in the two-half-pages spread shown in these two panels.

George Perez has made a career of packing his panels with loads of characters and fascinating details. This restaurant panorama is almost subdued compared to some of his previous work. Yet there is so much going on. The food. The array of passports spread like playing cards in front of Huntress. The echo to the Earth-2 past of our leading ladies. The engaged conversations and behaviours of the other patrons. The restaurant's beautiful view of the city below.

Second half of 2-page spread

But Perez only drew the sections set in the present. Flashback sequences get the inimitable touch of Kevin Maguire and his unparalleled ability to turn comic-book dialogue into a stack of simple yet emotionally loaded images.

Issues #1-4 follow this pattern of Perez in the present and Maguire in flashbacks, and they are an absolute joy to read. 

 

Beautiful banter

What I didn't love

Hakkou the meh first foe

 

The first few issues of this book introduce Hakkou as a powerful and mysterious new foe. His energy blasts, fired or delivered on contact, are able to wound even the nearly invulnerable Power Girl and he seems dedicated to defeating them and thwarting their plans to return to Earth 2.

Or something like that. 

Hakkou as Godzilla

As he absorbs more energy, he grows in both strength and stature. Emerging originally from a lab in Tokyo, he begins to stomp around through both urban areas and nearby ocean bays, confronting navy cruisers in the process, like other famous Japanese monsters.

What does not grow is our clarity. Who is this monster, what does he want, what is he talking about with pathways? By the time we reach the happy-ending victory for our two heroes, we have none of these answers and everyone who seemed to care in the heat of battle simply shrugs and moves on.

It leaves us with a multi-part battle with a giant question mark of a super-villain. Surely this otherwise excellent series could have done better in the foe department. 

Related Reviews

A more recent Power Girl TPB

Earth 2 series of reviews

Spider-Gwen also included lots of flashbacks but used a completely different visual approach to show them

 

Quick Reference Details

Writers:  Paul Levitz
Artists:  George Perez (#1-5), Kevin McGuire (#0-4)
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  April 16, 2013
Parental Rating: Teen

Back cover of World's Finest: Huntress and Power Girl

When the Movie is Better - Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015)

  

Front cover of Justice League: Gods and Monsters

This book collects the following comics: Justice League: Gods and Monsters #1-3, Justice League: Gods and Monsters - Superman, Justice League: Gods and Monsters - Batman, Justice League: Gods and Monsters - Wonder Woman

Score (out of 5 Capes)

1.5 out of 5 capes for an overwrought melodrama in an alternate universe where familiar names do similar things.

My Review

The animated film Justice League: Gods and Monsters was well received and well reviewed when it came out. The review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes gives it a high-80s freshness rating on its Tomatometer and a nearly as high audience score.

It put the "holy trinity" of DC Comics - Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman - in an alternate universe with some significant differences. 

The refugee from Krypton known as Superman grew up as Hernan Guerra, raised by migrant Mexican farm labourers, which gave him a whole different perspective on the concepts of Truth, Justice and Liberty.

The Batman has been re-imagined as Kirk Langstrom, a vampire with a thirst for blood warring with a desire to at least not hurt people and potentially to do good.

Wonder Woman has become Bekka of New Genesis, an escapee from Apokolips, with passionate ideals for a pastoral and egalitarian society.

This trade paperback collects each of their one-shot origin stories and the prequel tale released as a three-issue limited print (nine-chapter digital story) comic series. It does not retell the movie in comic format; it might have been a stronger read had it done so.

The creative team was chosen with an eye on bridging the gap between a successful animated film and the world of printed comics. Pairing Bruce Timm from the animation side with veteran comic (and Justice League) writer J. M. DeMatteis and a variety of artists set the table for success.

But the book ultimately falls flat. With a few exceptions, it feels like an overwrought, overly dramatic set of stories. In trying to set up the darker and more ambiguous heroes of this alternate universe, the tales stretch and contort, at times coming across like an amateur stage production.

By the end, the reader is left wondering why tie these heroes at all to the well-known ones, if only in name and bare outlines of settings? Must be marketing-driven - who would pay for comics and a film about "Bekka, Zod Jr. and the Vampire"?

The Wonder Woman origin story is the most enjoyable of the collection. Artists Rick Leonardi and Dan Smith shift their images to suit the shifting moods and settings as Bekka explores the new world she's landed on after fleeing Apokolips. Timm and DeMatteis work in many layers of the larger DC mythology that adds richness and depth. The result is an origin story that feels like a Wonder Woman story, if about Bekka instead of Diana. It repeatedly gets too narrative-heavy but succeeds overall.

The Batman origin story leans into the horror side of classic vampire tales. Artist Matthew Dow Smith goes dark - often too dark - with grim visuals and inking so heavy you might wonder if the page will feel wet and sticky to the touch. His images fit the theme and tone of the tale, but are not always very pleasant to look at. In the tale, Timm and DeMatteis leave too many gaps and wing wildly between filling a page with narrative boxes on the one hand and nothing at all on the other. This is without doubt to most overly dramatic of the set.

The Superman origin presents a fascinating back-story. Instead of patriotic salt-of-the-earth adoptive parents, this Kryptonian refugee winds up with a subsistence-level family of itinerant farm labourers. No wonder the child grows up with, if not a chip on the shoulder, certainly an edge, an aggression and anger rarely seen in the familiar Superman.

The rest of the collection tells the prequel tale of the three heroes meeting and beginning to work together. First to investigate then attempt to stop Doctor Psycho and his genetically enhanced Forever People, then to battle the hundred-foot-tall Imperiex across the continents. All with Amanda Waller and Lex Luthor lurking behind curtains and pulling strings.

The art of Thony Silas comes closest to the look and feel of the animated films and series from DC. While the style might work on the big screen and the digital tales, they feel cramped and crammed together on the printed page. Not that details are lost - Silas goes pretty light especially in face and body details - there is just too much packed into a single panel or page.

Too much drama. Too much action. It is the feeling of the entire collection: trying too hard. Whether it is in the reinvention of the characters, the narrative explanations of who they are and how they differ, the visuals, from cover to cover this feels like trying too hard and, perhaps as a result, ultimately missing.

One and a half capes out of five.

What I loved

Bekka joins a hippie commune

Half the shtick of this alternate universe is its re-imagining of some classic elements of our DC trinity in a different setting. Where this worked best is Wonder Woman's days in a hippie commune.

I liked re-imagining the idyllic beauty of Paradise Island as a pastoral back-to-the-land farm. The societal structures of a strong leader (the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta) and a largely egalitarian and socialist society submitting to her loving authority also map very well to the commune, with a cultish devotion to a small cadre of leaders and enthusiastic sharing of tasks and lives.

Bekka meets Doctor Psycho

Even the involvement of Doctor Psycho largely works in this context. His secret experiments with psychedelics aligns with the trippy drug sub-culture of the setting. Bekka / Wonder Woman desperately wants to love this group and to fit in and contribute. But as any human-built Utopia, it cannot hold.

What I didn't love

Over-inked and over-wrought

Lots to choose for the "What I Didn't Love" section this time, so to keep this to a single topic, I will call out the Batman origin story one-shot. It was already facing a tough challenge, to fill in some back-story for the vampire Batman. It failed to deliver and is an unpleasant read along the way.

Sure, the vampire-Batman conceit is clever, picking up on stereotypes and associations between vampire mythology and the (sometimes) blood-sucking flying rodent-like mammals. Vampire. Bat. Bat-man, I get it.

This one-shot leans into the horror side of vampire mythology, with dark mood and darker visuals, blends of Gothic tragedy. The heavy ink-work and muted colours let the drops of blood or wet fangs glimmer and stand out.

It's just not very pleasant.

Vampires. Blood and Bats. Bat-man. I get it.

Related Reviews

Another example of a comic tie-in to DC animation is Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy

Quick Reference Details

Writers:  Bruce Timm, J. M. DeMatteis
Artists:  Moritat (Superman one-shot), Matthew Dow Smith (Batman one-shot), Rick Leonardi & Dan Smith (Wonder Woman one-shot), Thony Silas (main series)
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Feb 3, 2017
Parental Rating: Teen

Back cover of Justice League: Gods and Monsters