The enemy of my enemy…
Creative Staff:
Story: Jody Houser
Art: Shawn Crystal
Colors: Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Letterer: John Workman
What They Say:
Mother Panic isn’t the only one hunting for revenge in the streets of Gotham City. The terrifying Pretty is after the next name on Violet Paige’s hit list. But is he a friend or foe-and how is he connected to the mysterious Gather House that made Violet who she is?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Mother Panic kicks off a new arc with this installment and shakes things up a bit in the art department with Houser now working with Shawn Crystal while Jean-Francois Beaulieu handles the color work. Though it’s not quite the same kind of dark and raw look that Tommy Lee Edwards gave us with the first three issues you do get a good sense of overall continuity here. And as the book shifts in a different direction with the story and its exploration a different approach to the art style isn’t bad either. What the team has going on here is just the first stages of things but it has a similar kind of personal and tragic intensity about it that clicks for the title and that’s hugely important.
While we’ve had tidbits of Violet’s past given to us so far it seems like this arc is going to dig into it a whole lot more. We actually get to see a bit more of how she presents the socialite facade to the world here early on with a popular late night TV talk show and it’s something where you might see Bruce Wayne hitting the circuit and doing it just to get it done but you see Violet really hating every moment of it, viscerally, but know it serves to keep up certain appearances and a way of thinking about her for the masses. When she’s asked to talk about Batman she ends up presenting a view that you know would exist, reasonably so in fact, about how he’s a bully toward the mentally ill and shouldn’t be celebrated as a hero. It gets lots of jeers but there’s such a level of truth to that context that you can’t just dismiss it outright.
What her show appearance brings her into the orbit of though is the man that’s been running the Gotham Science & Technology foundation, which just had a gala opening go badly when the building was blown up. Ashley’s trying the PR circuit to rebuild things but for Violet she remembers him from her youth as the man who suggested Gather House to Victor. That sets her off on her path for vengeance, something that takes her into the orbit of a strange Victorian-ish young man named Pretty that’s causing lots of destruction. The connections are still being laid but through their interactions and her own twisted and tragic background she’s able to surmise he was from Gather House as well. The look into life in that institution is heartbreaking to be sure and we see how it’s a kind of twisted bond that these two share, allowing her to get close to him in a way that you suspect nobody else would. What that portends is unclear – will they work together or is she going to try and limit him – but it’s definitely intriguing.
In Summary:
Mother Panic continues to deliver the goods on the fringe side of Gotham for me that I crave, playing in the familiar but working its own angle and carving out its own territory. Houser kicks off the new arc nicely here – and I like that it’s at issue four and not issue seven – while building the larger narrative of Violet herself. This book also makes out very well with the addition of Shawn Crystal on the art duties as there’s a really neat sense of design about it with the architecture but also in how Violet is presented – both in her socialite side that captures her laziness and boredom about it as well as the more angular look of Mother Panic. When you can get a costume like that and bring in a sense of warmth and humanity about it when she holds Pretty, you’re doing some great stuff.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: DC Comics/Young Animal via ComiXology
Release Date: March 8th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
