Well, hello there teen plus rating. I’m very happy to see you.
What They Say:
Who is Voodoo? Is she hero, villain–or both? Learn the truth about Priscilla Kitaen as she leaves a trail of violence across America. Discover the new DCU through her eyes, because the things she sees are not always what they seem.
The Review:
With the blending of the Wildstorm characters into the mainstream DC Universe, Voodoo is one of the characters that I was admittedly the least curious about. I only read Wildcats when it first started back in the 90’s for a few issues and never saw anything else about the character afterwards. So for all intents and purposes, I went into this book with a clean slate and a generally positive attitude towards Ron Marz who has written some stuff I liked on the cosmic range over the years back when I was into comics in the early 90’s. What helped sell this book more though is the absolutely beautiful artwork by Sami Basri. While I suspect he may miss an issue here or there, his artwork alone is worth the price of admission here.
The story here covers a fair bit of material if you’ve got a bit of an open mind and like to deal with inferences and implications. Voodoo, the name given to the most popular stripper in the club of the same name, is definitely just that as we see her performance garnering a lot of attention and a lot of money being flung her way. While she performs, the narrative comes more from the couple that’s watching her, Jess and Tyler. Both of them it turns out are from some other organization that’s keeping tabs on her and Tyler likes the up close and personal approach, which does turn Jess off a bit causing her to leave and get into a bit of trouble herself. Though both of them are a bit obscured in terms of who they’re working for and their real goal, we do learn a fair bit about Voodoo herself.
And amusingly enough, it comes from Tyler getting a private dance from her where he spills out her secrets that she’s trying to hide. It’s not terribly deep at the moment, all surface potential material about her being some sort of extraterrestrial spy that’s here to get information on the superheroes of the world, their abilities and weaknesses. And he’s intent on getting her to fess up that she’s not human, as good looking as she is for one, so that they can get back and he can be the results oriented guy he is. It’s an amusing approach and one that generally causes the target to hit the ground running more than anything else. Voodoo does have her way with him though as she continues the dance, much as he dances with words that have quite the feel to them when you imagine his voice, and we get a really good glimpse at another surface level for Voodoo.
Digital Notes:
This Comixology edition of Voodoo contains the main cover as seen with the print edition with no variants or other extras included.
In Summary:
With DC Comics giving it a teen plus rating and Comixology at 15+, I certainly knew what I was getting into with Voodoo. And I like it, which is likely to set a segment of fans against me. Thankfully, the world of comics is diverse in offering up what its female characters are like and not all of them are going to be the bright, shining hope that most women want as sometimes we’ll get the ones that aren’t often represented in comics. Voodoo is largely a cipher here and possibly for a very good reason as we see from the last few panels. It’s a gratuitous book in how it spends so much of its time on the dances, but there’s a verbal dance going on as well that keeps you reading and wanting to know more. I’m not quite sure there’s a huge enough hook here for me to be a same-day digital buyer of it, but it’s definitely got me as a reader for quite awhile. And as much as I do like the story potential that can come from it, the biggest selling point is Sami Basri’s art here. The overall combination of story and artwork makes this work more than it should in some ways but I’m definitely along for the ride.
Grade: B+
