Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Marguerite Sauvage
Colors: Jeremy Lawson
What They Say:
Alone, Batwoman tries to stop Edel Nacht’s plan to turn over innocent civilians to the evil Tenebrae. Meanwhile, trapped in the Joker’s Daughter’s cabaret, Zatanna tries to figure out how she can help.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
One of the things I enjoy about this series is the rotation that we get for the cast of characters. Sometimes when we get back to one of them, such as Kate and the others in Berlin here, you realize just how long it’s been as you’ve almost forgotten about that storyline and are able to dig back into it. Even better, however, is when you get a returning artist that does great stuff and you get to enjoy it in these pages once more. Marguerite Sauvage set the tone for Bombshells in the opening installments and having her back again here is just wonderful. The artists across the board have been fantastic, but I’ll admit that I find Sauvage to be the one that defines it in a certain way with the curves, the layouts, and just the expressiveness of it all. She’s definitely in great company, however.
With this installment, we get to run through a few different things to catch up with what’s going on in Berlin. Zatanna’s making a big play to escape the cage that she’s been in and has found an amusing way to ge Constantine-Bunny to help, noting that she’ll forget about the incident in Milan and that if he doesn’t help he’s going to become a tasty meal before too long. This is all setup for something to come, but it’s given some good humor and tension along with some great Zatanna visuals. Similarly, we get some time with Selina and Lex talking about Kate and what needs to be done while dropping a note about the little alien piece that he has. I love the playfulness about their interactions as both are conning the other on some level while enjoying it, all while the Huntress is slipping out of the trunk of the car. It’s small but so perfectly presented that it makes you grin with its old time serialized nature.
The bulk of the issue focuses on Kate and her being held by Nacht as he intends to use her as a seemingly perfect vessel for the Tenebrae. What’s interesting is that Kate’s sort of surprised by this considering the whole Nazi thing and her being not only Jewish but involved with another woman, but it’s here that Nacht makes it clear that it’s far more than that. He sees the Tenebrae as the way to sweep the world clean and take over after they leave and none of the things that the Nazi’s are focused on will mean anything. It helps to separate what’s going on from the horror of the Nazi’s but still keeping them as an integral threat. One that they can work with from time to time to deal with the bigger threat. I also really liked that Kate manages to rally a number of those in the camp that she’s been taken to to actually fight back. There’s that persistent view that so many just went willingly, but there was a lot of resistance and a lot of pushback in many ways, so having it represented here is great to see.
In Summary:
DC Comics Bombshells has another strong issue and it moves us back with a group we haven’t seen in a bit, allowing the other characters and their stories to rest for a bit. Bennett and Sauvage just seem to click exceptionally well in how the pages come to life and it has a look that’s just spot on in my view of what the Bombshells look should be like. With so many great artists working this series I haven’t been disappointed yet and each of them brings some great material out that I could never truly pick one over the other, I just have a particular affection here since Sauvage was at the start. Bringing her back for more of Kate’s story just makes it all the more exciting. Very fun stuff that nudges everything forward a bit more once again.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: February 5th, 2016
MSRP: $0.99