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| Front cover of Henchgirl TPB by Dark Horse Comics |
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
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Relationships, dialog and humour drive this story |
What I didn't love
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| 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.
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| 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
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| Back cover of Henchgirl TPB by Dark Horse Comics |
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