Wherein things come together, beautifully.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Mirka Andolfo
Colors: Wendy Broome
What They Say:
Batwoman confronts Nygma, von Gunther brings mayhem to London, and the Bombshells all unite for a final battle!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Battle of Britain arc hits the halfway point here and the storyline continues to offer up a lot of good stuff. While the in the heat of battle relationship stuff and quips took a lot of the stage last time around, it’s material that I still think works well and adds some nice color to events that we don’t normally get in most other books. This comes on top of the other kind of color here that speaks to the time, bringing in some of the religious and ethnic elements and not shying away from it. Granted, it’s hedging what it does because it doesn’t want to be offensive, but you can’t have Jewish characters running around beating up Nazi’s without some sort of references to it. While I haven’t looked at the old books from the 40’s in a long, long, time, there were always elements of that there. Bennett handles it well here by making it a part of it without making it a big part. Admittedly, however, since it’s so rare to get this in superhero books it stands out no matter how minimal.
With this issue we get a lot going on as it’s pretty action packed once again. This places us in the midst of the battle with a mild breather along the way to collect ourselves as the various members of the team have accomplished a lot. Kicking it off with Batwoman taking out Nygma is cathartic considering what he’s done so far in London and there’s a big plus to the fact that Kate does it all without any superpowers. This is something that makes an impact on Stargirl when she learns about it since she was already feeling like the odd woman out in all of this with the heavy hitters. So it’s a nice kind of bond that slips in amid it all. Kate definitely dominates in this installment just by sheer force of personality – and that’s saying a lot considering Amanda Waller is here as well. But in the end we get some good action pieces throughout that moves things along.
The scale of the threat doesn’t change per se in this installment but it does become a bit more personal. Some of this comes from the fact that everyone is now finally here in London and together in one place, which makes for its own humor. Kate’s interest in Diana has got to be worked with more. With the Tenebrae still here and Von Gunther getting ready to make a bigger play, having the Tenebrae Night Witches on the scene messing with Supergirl gives that a very personal connection for her that’s played very well. All of these smaller elements come together well because we have had so many different and smaller arcs and configurations prior to this where we know the characters and there’s a kind of honesty about it all now that they’re together. Particular that last page. Now that I want as an unlettered poster in 24×36 size.
In Summary:
Bombshells finally brings the team together and it’s all done so beautifully thanks to Mirka Andolfo’s artwork here. She brings this diverse group together in such a great way with so many panels where the camera placement is spot on and the designs just look so fantastic that I can’t help but to just zoom in and adore them individually. I love the curvature she brings to the characters, the expressiveness of the faces, and just the poses that work so beautifully. The team in general captures the Bombshells look great but the team of Andolfo and Broome just feels like it’s extra sweet. And she gets the payoff of that final page which is probably one of my favorite panels of the entire run so far. A very solid book that does a lot of very fun things and leaves me craving more.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: March 4th, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
