Gotham adds an intriguing new element.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jody Houser
Art: Tommy Lee Edwards
Colors: Tommy Lee Edwards
Letterer: John Workman
What They Say:
Meet Violet Paige, a celebutante with a bad attitude and a temper to match, who no one suspects of having anything lying beneath the surface of her outrageous exploits. But Violet isn’t just another bored heiress in the upper echelons of Gotham City’s elite. Motivated by her traumatic youth, Violet seeks to exact vengeance on her privileged peers as the terrifying new vigilante known only as Mother Panic.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Mother Panic brings out the fourth and final launch series from Young Animal and I have to admit that I wasn’t sure which book I’d end up enjoying the most. My anticipation leaned in one direction because of nostalgia, as Doom Patrol was a big book for me years ago, while Shade could have upended that considering my love of the original’s weirdness. Yet, here we are with Mother Panic, and it’s going to hit a sweet spot for me that DC Comics has struggled with for this year. While I usually avoid the main Batman books I end up digging into the fringe books, such as Gotham by Midnight. The loss of that book really stung as it was so well executed. Based on this first issue – the only one of the four series that I’ve now subscribed to – it looks like Mother Panic is going to fill a very strong need that I have in exploring the rich yet dark underside of Gotham that Batman simply feels too superficially connected to at times.
Written by Jody Houser, who has done some fantastic and lighter work elsewhere recently, and hauntingly illustrated by Tommy Lee Edwards with my first exposure to his work, Mother Panic presents us with the familiar but with a twist. Violet Paige is part of the Gotham elite as a “celebutante” that the gossip mongers of the world follow. She’s returning to Gotham after a recent incident and is looking to get back into the thick of things, though she’s not fully up to it physically yet. Violet’s caustic nature is delightful to watch as she rails against all those that try to catch her attention and we see through her narration that she’s close to being one of those people that just wants to see the world burn – and that Gotham is an ideal shit hole to start with. Not your traditional hero, but also not far off from many that we’ve gotten since things went darker in the 80’s. Houser makes her compelling because you want to know what motivates her, and we get some of that with the glimpses of her troubled family history, and Edwards delivers a rough and raw visual experience with the detail and colors to just yank you down into the gutter with the material.
Thankfully, the team here does a solid job of introducing what Violet is after in dealing with people in cruel and unusual ways, the kind of dark character that says plainly that she doesn’t want to be called a hero. Through what seems like a random accident, she comes across a man that serves as a bodyguard for someone named Helmsley that she’s after and rescues him to get information about what he’s doing. It’s here that the “Young Animal” angle comes in we he has some disturbing “art” that pushed this guy over the edge, causing him to be put on the elimination list so as to protect the secret. High end disturbing art is nothing new, though the creativity of disturbing material continues to grow, and the team avoids showing it here which just makes it all the more scary. What we do get is some time with the apparent artist, a woman named Gala, and through her we get a look into her twisted worldview. Yes, Violet will be a hero of some sort, something we’ve seen before as her needs and doing good simply align, but she’s playing in a different kind of muck here, even as we do get Batman moving around the edges as nothing goes on in Gotham without him being aware.
In Summary:
Mother Panic with its debut issue has angled in on a certain sweet spot for me in a way that just clicks. DC Comics has worked some really good things over the years when it comes to exploring the seemingly endless potential of Gotham itself and something like this that gets gritty and dangerous is exactly what’s needed. Houser and Edwards have a very strong book here (and I’m curious to see what the backup feature becomes, though I generally loathe those in ongoing books) that has me wanting to see a lot more of Violet and what she’s been up to all this time. And to see exactly how she works in going after her goals and the weird alignments that may come out of it in interacting with others. Definitely the book that has me the most excited from the Young Animal line.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: DC Comics/Young Animal via ComiXology
Release Date: November 9th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
