The lasso compels truth, but it can’t stop mansplaining.
Creative Staff:
Story: Sara Ryan
Art: Christian Duce
What They Say:
Esperanza’s big concert has begun! While they do their best to protect the starlet from a stalker, Diana and Clarice begin to worry about her fans’ safety as well. “VIP” part 2 of 2.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The first half of this two part storyline wasn’t one that thrilled me all that much, but mostly just because of the structure of it with the different time periods it was taking in and a lack of what felt like a strong narrative to tie it together and feel cohesive. With the second installment, things do work in a fairly linear way here and that makes it a smoother reader, especially since we know the characters in a general sense now, but it still comes down to the main point that the story itself isn’t interesting. The ideas are solid and what it wants to say is definitely right, but the flow of it all just feels forced.
With Diana having taken on the security job for Esperanza as she prepares for her transition from young pop icon to serious actress, she’s doing the tour gig and there’s certainly some fun to it for the group as they go about things and figure out their general plan. It’s less fun when you see what’s being said about everyone involved though the newspaper/site news items that pop up in the early pages as it just reinforces how terrible society is as a whole in a way in order to gain attention. Wonder Woman isn’t immune to it either as she gets grief for spending time doing this rather than with bigger crises out there, but with the personal connections she has here, that’s lost in the noise of the tabloid news.
We do see that when the concert phase gets underway that the audience is loving every minute of the performance and the VIP side has some fun, though there’s plenty of threat in there from the head of security that’s going to cause a disaster. While that is averted as it progresses, what we get is basically a Scooby-Doo ending where the villain is revealed and he goes on mansplaining his horrible and twisted mindset about why Esperanza has to remain pure. While there are far too many people with these views out there, and they are just as simple as this more often than not, that they went this direction with it being so one dimensional just takes the story to a far simpler place and far less engaging because it’s the wrong kind of “teaching moment” presentation.
In Summary:
Sensation Comics has done a lot of these kinds of teaching moments along its run overall and the majority have been strong, creative and engaging. This is one of the few that just falls flat because of its approach, pacing and the lack of really making the villain of it anything more than a creeper. Of which far, far too many exist. But with the chance to tell a story in a two issue form like this, I had hoped for a bit more. Overall, this will be one of the less memorable stories of the series, though hopefully it’ll have some impact on someone in a positive way, which is all you can hope for in the end.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: March 26th, 2015
MSRP: $0.99
