Grindhouse won’t fink on soul brothers.
Creative Staff:
Story and Letters: Alex de Campi
Art: Mulele Jarvis
Colors: Marissa Louise
What They Say:
Grindhouse is back in blaxploitation! On orders from the Bureau of Organized Terrorism Intervention (B.O.O.T.I.), superfly superspy Lady Danger came to make trouble in a CIA-backed Chinese general turned drug lord’s neighborhood. Now it’s his turn to make trouble in hers—with lots of guns and ninjas! And bimbos, also!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The CIA wants B.O.O.T.I. and nothing is going to stand in their way! Except, that is, one black neighborhood that pulls together behind its favorite daughter: Lady Danger.
Unfortunately, Lady Danger isn’t up to her usual bulletproof self, thanks to a handsome CIA spy who managed to drug her with something that inhibits her powers. While the B.O.O.T.I Commander races to discover the cure, a group of ninjas at the command of a Chinese warlord attack her neighborhood. The warlord wants revenge for Lady Danger humiliating him last issue and doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process. Lucky for us and unlucky for him, he picked the wrong neighborhood to mess with.
“Lady Danger: Agent of B.O.O.T.I.” Part Two takes just about every Blaxploitation trope I know of, piles it into a blender, and hits “puree.” It’s a big, kinetic story that almost stumbles over itself to tell its tale, making some of the plot points come seemingly out of nowhere and creating a rough rhythm to the plot. However, the verve and joy that went into this issue more than make up for its pacing.
I don’t know if this is the most fun de Campi has had writing Grindhouse, but it sure comes off like that. While most Grindhouse stories possess some level of playfulness, they’ve never been quite to this level. The playfulness shows up in the plot and character and in the way that de Campi, Jarvis, and Louise use the format. When the ninjas appears, they are heralded by a slim, rectangular hot pink panel with the words “Enter the Ninja” filling up the entire space. The pink functions almost like a screen, blocking our view, and the letters serve as cutouts in the screen, allowing us to peek through at what’s behind it. Which just happens to be ninjas.
de Campi and Jarvis also play around with rhythm and panel placements. One of my favorite pages consists of only three panels. In the first, we see Big Pussy standing at the head of a gang composed of various people from the community. She says, “Lady Danger ain’t here right now, but at the—.” Her trailing dialogue leads to the second panel, whith Big Pussy and the rest holding guns. Superimposed over it is the onomatopoeia “KACHACK.” This leads to the third panel, where Big Pussy winks at the general and says, “—You can leave a message.”
Little moments like that pepper the issue and speak to the way that this creative team plays to the medium. Honestly, I have to stop myself from describing every one, because that would leave you with nothing to read.
I will say that the ending is a little abrupt and weird, but if you know the Blaxploitation genre and are just familiar with grindhouse cinema in general, you’ll see that it does fit with the genre in which this comic plays.
In Summary:
Now, let’s get to those grindhouse totals: No breasts. 1 dead body. 60 dead ninjas. Heads roll. Arms roll. Street gang fu. Orthodox Jew fu. Beauty products fu. Epic Side-Eye fu. Professor Josh gives this an…
Grade: A
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date: June 24th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
