A cold war rises and the future is not yet ready.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Marguerite Sauvage
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
The war—and the Bombshells—come to an end at last. With grief and with grace, the world is changed—forever.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Bombshells series draws to a close with this installment with the right kind of tone, giving us a taste of what could be (and I dream and hope for it to take reality someday) while putting a good bit of closure on all that’s come. I’ve reviewed every issue of this and the previous run and have been an enthusiastic booster of it, wishing it had connected better with a wider audience so that there could have been a few spinoff titles. Marguerite Bennett delivers a solid closure installment here, largely working as epilogue, and she gets to do so with Marguerite Sauvage putting together a fantastic looking work as it covers so much. This pairing has done some great stuff in both titles over the last four years and having them together here for the close just as they were at the start is appropriate.
Shifting to 1960, we get the young man that Bruce Wayne has become visiting Selina to try and find out what’s happened to the Bombshells in the fifteen years since the war ended. A lot of this is tied to his feeling that a cold war is coming and dark tidings from Darkseid are in the wind, coming at a time when Supergirl and Lois Lane are nowhere to be found and may be offworld. While Selina regales him with stories of where everyone landed, the intent here is that she and Bruce will be the ones who will hold back the darkness for a brief time while the next generation fully comes up to speed. Her words are intriguing as she seemingly has knowledge of the more traditional world and life that Bruce has experienced and wants him to become a new “space age” defender while coming from such a different background. It’s inspirational and intriguing, even set against the coldness of the period that the world is entering, and it left me desperately craving this new incarnation.
But that’s the wrapper of the issue, the binding piece that holds all the tasty treats. It’s in the rest of these pages that we get Selina narrating the events of so many, such as Wonder Woman being a nomadic warrior helping where she can. Talk of Aquawoman helping her people and others or Miri Marvel teaching and helping the kids in Warsaw. The book touches nicely on Waller and how she’s dealing with the extraterrestrial threat at this stage, having been reprimanded but not punished for her actions in the war. And we get the delectable bit on how there’s now a dark Justice League out there that’s made up of elements of the old Suicide Squad and more. It’s a solid piece that tries to touch on as many characters as possible, with Sauvage delivering some great pages that almost stand entirely alone to give them their due, as it provides the kind of closure and nods toward where the characters are moving next all these years later.
In Summary:
For me, this is the end of an era. Almost every week for about 140 issues I got to enjoy this world that Marguerite Bennett created and shared with so many wonderful artists that I’ve become enamored by with their take on this style. We got the familiar world of superheroes with some wonderful twists, great designs, and characters that resonated in a big way. I loved finding the right time every weekend to curl up and just immerse myself in this world. My hope is that all of this gets some high quality hardcovers some day and that more people discover it over time because it’s a rare project that doesn’t just succeed – it exceeds in just about everything. The team continually brought me to enjoy characters I don’t get to see in the mainline universe and filled them with joy amid the chaos and sadness. It challenged them and inspired others and made for a wonderful time in investing in this world. I don’t want it to end but I’m glad that it’s going out on as high a note as it is here.
Thank you for this experience.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: May 11th, 2018
MSRP: $0.99
