The montage continues.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Aneke
Colors: J. Nanjan
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
Can the world work together to survive the agents of Apokolips?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The penultimate installment of Bombshells: United delves into what’s essentially an extended montage/epilogue piece with some decent narration about choices. Marguerite Bennett still feels like a lot of things are being rushed here and some of that has me lamenting that much of the United run could have covered a lot more of what we see here than it did. On the plus side, we get Aneke working through the book with so many great panels and pieces that it just delights me and, again, makes me wish she had a regular Bombshells book to work on since I really enjoy her take on the characters and the time period. Suffice to say, the book looks fantastic.
Though a lot of little threats have been dealt with in the recent pages, along with a little music, this installment has Zatanna being the one to go and deal with the core main threat now of Apokolips through what the Joker’s Daughter represents with her power. With it taking up just the first couple of pages, it’s the kind of quick and hollow piece where just her self-sacrifice ends up saving the day, though you know Constantine and Raven thought they were losing her. It’s a welcome reunion when all is said and done for the two with Apokolips destroyed and that gets the rest of the book underway with more of the same across the world. While Wonder Woman is looking to end things in Berlin as peacefully as possible, everyone else has essentially laid down their arms.
And there are a lot of fun little one-off panels seeing couples embrace and kiss while others hold onto those that sacrificed as well, such as Superman and Power Girl. The nods to the refugees of Atlantis is well-handled and most of the main characters get their moment here. The one that gets the most is the one that deserves it as it’s where all of this started with Kate back in Gotham and having Maggie introduce her to the Batgirls that fought while she was overseas all these years. It’s a great legacy that really humbles her and it’s a nice bit of balance to the embrace and completely earned kiss that Maggie and Kate have. That first issue a few years ago set the tone for the series and we do get several kisses here, from Black Canary and Oliver to Lois Lane and Supergirl. Lots and lots of good stuff.
In Summary:
As a penultimate installment to the series, Bombshells: United is about as I expected. The song lyrics are kept minimal thankfully but it is by and large an extended montage installment that we get here. It made me lament the loss of these stories and characters that have so much more that can be explored and just how much was set up across the entire run. Bennett handles the issue solidly in covering a lot of areas and events going on, honing in on a couple of key ones, while Aneke once again puts together an absolutely gorgeous looking book that when combined with J. Nanjan’s color work just utterly delights me. I’m looking forward to the finale but with that kind of resignation about it.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: May 4th, 2018
MSRP: $0.99
