A strong standalone piece.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mike Carey
Art: Donny Hadiwidjaja
Colors: Mohan
Letterer: Crank!
What They Say:
Barbarella has a corporate target on her back, and only the arrival of an old friend can save her bacon. But the mistress of the spaceways whose heart belongs to no one is out of the frying pan and into the fire—literally! For her latest adventure has her headed for the heart of the sun!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The more comfortable with Barbarella as a series and a character that Mike Carey gets the better the series gets. I continue to enjoy the arcs but I think we need more of these one-off stories in order to really have fun with the character and not get too bogged down. This issue does several short tales in one with Donny Hadiwidjaja handling the art duties and once again we get a guest artist that I hope gets to do more work on the series. I love the look of the characters here, the layouts that Donny works into it, and the playful kinds of sexuality that we get all while still keeping it pretty clean overall.
The wrapper for this standalone tale involves Barbarella having just enjoyed in some pretty decent coitus with a Baron that now has no intention of letting her go. Having been betrayed by other lovers before he now kills those that he engages in sexual shenanigans with in order to stave off that problem. Naturally, Barbarella wants know part of that and instead just makes it clear that she’s going to leave here since this isn’t even one of the worst kinds of post-sexual encounter issues she’s faced. What she manages to do in classic fashion here is to entice him with three tales of what she’s faced before and then promising that she’ll walk out the door at the end. Obviously she does so there aren’t any surprises there but it’s fun in watching it all come together in that regard with a good sense of finality about it.
The three tales within are fun as they showcase different kinds of sexual exploits with some ties that binds it all together. An initial mission shows different ways that species propagate across the galaxy, which was always a draw to this universe in that it wanted to just have fun with it. It’s playful in adhering to her humanoid elements but it also keeps us in the loop with her ship in a fun way. Which in turn gets brought up in the second story with a cosmic level of sexual interaction that introduces us to her ship, the Thief of Fire, and how that relationship got underway. It’s not too sexual here though the climax is hilarious. What works the best for me is the final one that takes us to the Mechanical Imperium where she’s got friends and someone that needs her help. It’s not sexual per se, though that factors in at first, but covers another aspect of love. And if the Barbarella film taught me anything, it’s all about love.
In Summary:
I continue to enjoy Barbarella a whole lot and can’t get enough. Mike Carey has really grown into the property really well with how he’s handling all aspects of it and this installment plays to a lot of it in very fun ways. I’m also a big fan of standalone tales like this as I really wish we had more of them or shorter main arcs. This book takes advantage of the standalone nature with a new artist handling it and Donny Hadiwidjaja performs beautifully here with some great character designs, a good sense of sensuality, and just a whole lot of fun with creature designs and ship designs. I want more and more!
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: July 25th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
