Wrapping up the North African adventure!
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Laura Braga
Colors: J. Nanjan
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
Vixen rises above the battle to decide the fate of Zambesi once and for all!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With an arc that definitely feels like it’s gone on for too long, especially after starting with such promise, the series brings to a close the events in Zambesi this time around. Bennett has worked with some good characters here to tie into past events elsewhere and how some of them are running from things that they need to deal with all while introducing some new characters to the mix. It’s definitely good to have both Vixen and Shiera here and getting this expanded origin story for Cheetah is a big plus as well. Laura Braga has had a lot of characters to deal with in this arc but I’m just glad there are no mechanical gods for the most part here outside of a couple of panels as that whole area just rubs me the wrong way. I get the intent and the nod toward future threat, but the mobile suit design just took me out of it.
With this chapter, it wraps up things from Selina’s twist the last time around of playing up her fake Nazi ties as there’s basically just the mop up side of it. It’s played light and kind of fun with how Shiera narrates part of it and what they need to do with it all, but it also has an amusing twist in trying to figure out how to remove the Thanagarian technology permanently since burying it didn’t work for obvious reasons. Her casual mention of Greek fire has Diana stepping up to provide what’s needed but it’s the little heart and adoration aspect form Shiera that just makes it utterly adorable. You can easily see Diana generating quite a fanclub as time goes on with those that admire her in all sorts of ways.
Where this installment wants to go in order to dig into things a bit more with the established cast is that we learn that Kate has had some dealings with the mechanical gods before. It takes us back to when she ended up taking on her father’s company after his death and how the board manipulated her on the adventure into Zambesi, meeting Vixen at that time, and seeing how the board was treating her like little more than a figurehead until they could get rid of her. This ties into the ongoing theme from several of this group where they’ve done or been involved in bad things and have to deal with it at some point instead of running away from it. The flashback sequence is nicely done but I liked more how Renee decides that she has to stop running and that Kate knows she has to face these things too, and can do so with her. Everyone is ready to move on to new paths by the end and that makes it a solid ending of this adventure overall.
In Summary:
Bombshells has been going on for quite a while now as we hit this issue of the largely weekly series and it’s been fun and engaging throughout. While aspects of this arc didn’t grab me overall and it felt a bit overly long in a few areas, it’s been fun for the new introductions into this series from the mainline universe with the twists and turns of it all. But now we’re going to move onto some other characters and situations, and hopefully more stories being blended from different areas of the world, but just getting to a new area and reconnecting with characters we haven’t seen in awhile will be welcome. This is a solid ending, just one that took too long to get to.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: December 2nd, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
