The power finds a new home to reside in.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Siya Oum
Colors: J. Nanjan
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
The mad queen of the alien armada is revealed!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
One of the things that worked with Bombshells: United was that even when it did have a sudden twist along the way there was a lot of buildup of possibilities before it. As we get further into the final arc it feels like a lot of stuff is just being thrown in for whatever reason and a lot of the emotional connection is lost, particularly in the first half of this book. Marguerite Bennett has nailed so much of this series so well overall that it feels kind of unfortunate that it has a rushed and overstuffed finale arc underway. This issue brings David Hahn in for the art duties and he has some great stuff here, though coming from Siya Oums vision of the Joker to this one is jarring as they’re very, very different. But it fits within the context of the chaos that is the Joker in this particular franchise.
The opening piece is a tough one as we discover that among all the various entities and groups that are causing trouble over the world, the one Amanda Waller is focusing on is the arrival of the Black Lanterns in Japan. She feels that the only thing she can do is to drop the big one on them even at the cost of so many innocents. She feels emotional over it, in her Waller way, and we have Frankie trying to talk her out of it to no avail. While it’s dealt with well in how Katana makes it clear it won’t happen, the whole thing is just so out of left field that it doesn’t connect in the slightest. And with all the changes to the war in general it felt like some other location could have been chosen rather than repeating history, if bothering with this kind of concept overall. It simply falls flat in a very big way for me.
What works a lot better is the face off with the Joker as he materializes into a more physical form here and spends his time taunting the Bombshells that are there. Harley is less the object of his attention this time around as we get Poison Ivy pushing back as he rants about how his force will change everything. There’s some good back and forth there but the deeper cuts come when dealing with Batwoman as the Joker shows just how out of step with time she is and how everything that she loves and knows will die in front of her. It’s a good piece of psychological play that’s going on and a lot of her expressions felt like it came from the 40’s era comics in a really neat way. Of course, it all leads to an unexpected twist that puts the Joker in a new position and place.
In Summary:
While aspects of this issue, and final arc, are frustrating me, there’s a lot of good stuff in here as well because we’ve built these long and deep relationships with the characters. The first half left me less than thrilled as it felt like it was an out of the blue sequence without enough foundation to make it work but the back half delivers a lot of good character stuff to keep it fresh and fun along with a nice twist. Hahn’s artwork is definitely solid here but it’s a bit jarring after what Siya Oum did, particularly with the Joker as that was so stylishly done before and not attempted here as Hahn went in a different and just as strong direction. It’s just different.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: April 20th, 2018
MSRP: $0.99