New twists surface!
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Richard Ortiz
Colors: J. Nanjan
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
Hawkgirl flies around the shrubs of Zambesi trying to find the location of the cavern that could unveil the origin of the mechanical gods. The Bombshells follow her in their new “Vixenmobile.”
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Bombshells series brings this particular three part arc to a close, though it’s easier to view it a six-part arc with the previous one combined. The adventure with Vixen and the time in Zambesi has definitely been interesting as we’ve gotten more about the characters that we already know, notably with Renee, while also introducing a few new ones. Vixen obviously makes out the best but we got some solid time with Cheetah as she’s becoming who she will be, as well as Shiera and the fun of someone with a jetpack. Because, seriously, jetpacks are awesome and therefore anyone who has one is awesome. The end result is pretty solid though the six installments overall felt like it kind of leveled out too early and it hasn’t been as captivating as other arcs.
With Cheetah’s story behind us, this one focuses on the gang and their continually renamed x-mobile that reminds me of something out of Wacky Raceland, they’re making progress to figure out how all of this is happening. Laura Braga gets to have fun in doing a bit of a travelogue piece with the women talking and providing exposition as they make their way through the jungle and Bennett provides for some good if simple humor along the way that’s appropriate for the characters. Digging into the past of Zambest and revealing that there’s so much here over the centuries that’s ahead of its time in a lot of ways is certainly intriguing but it’s also that kind of weird expansion that feels like it needs a lot more detail to feel grounded and a part of everything. And yes, I say that even after dealing with Themyscira and Atlantis.
With the ancient facility that they’re investigating to see if things have been taken, we get ourselves a little bit of an Indiana Jones style adventure and that certainly works well. The exposition expands on it all a bit and it lets Shiera take the lead, but when it shifts to dealing with lots of snakes it just takes on a kind of light and silly tone. Even more so when you add in some of the other traps that go live. It’s a fun enough piece but it feels kind of hollow in terms of story, but it’s intention is to get Vixen on board with realizing that what’s been going on has been going on longer than she thought and that important artifacts from here have been pilfered for quite some time on an increasingly larger scale. It’s fun enough but it’s not as engaging as I would have hoped for.
In Summary:
Bombshells almost feels like it’s done with this arc for the moment but it looks like the next two chapters are going to keep it going with a look at Shiera and more. That’s not a bad thing but I’d like to get back to some of the characters sooner rather than later. This arc is moving along well enough overall and I enjoy seeing Laura Braga tackling as many characters she does here, and the fun of the snakes, but mostly we get more setup for what the Nazi’s have been up to in procuring more ancient artifacts and what it may lead to. Which is important to do but it’s not coming across as all that compelling at the moment.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: September 30th, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
