“I have a fully functioning vagina. That’s not a crime.”
Creative Staff:
Story: Mike Carey
Art: Kenan Yarar
Colors: Mohan
Letterer: Crank!
What They Say:
Earth’s star-crossed daughter is back! When Barbarella wanders into a war zone, the theocratic rulers of Parosia arrest and imprison her. A prison break is brewing, but now that she knows what the Parosians do to their own citizens Barbarella decides to make this fight her own…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While I’ve never read the original work I have a deep love and affection for the Barbarella film. Watching that at a far too young of an age was certainly an awakening for me that I didn’t quite grasp for a number of years but it’s certainly one of those key early time for me. So the news that Dynamite was kicking off a new Barbarella series certainly was enticing though I knew to take it on its own and without comparisons because it’s going to be its own work. Mike Carey has done some really fun stuff over the years and this opening issue that shows with a bit of time and settling into things it could be a great romp. And Kenan Yarar is certainly a solid illustrator for this that I have hopes will be able to get really creative as time goes on. My only minor complaint is that the color work feels like it should be a lot more bold and vibrant than the almost flat look that we get.
While not digging into the details of how this “world” is designed, we’re thrown right into things as there’s a war going on between two worlds with a battle in space. The Earth forces are trying to deal with the world of Parosia, a really intense theocracy, and it’s fought with drone ships at the least so there’s no loss of life. For Barbarella, she ends up dropping into this space because her ship needs repairs and starts dealing with the Parosian fleet that picks her up. Unfortunately for her, while her ship may be free of weapons or contraband she herself is guilty of carrying bio-contraband in the form of a vagine. Parosia has taken a really hard line on this after coming up with ways to handle procreation and has outlawed physical intimacy. It’s one of those quick and fast trials that lands her in prison.
Where she naturally is her sexual self – even after having her vagina removed – and leads a kind of mini-revolution with non-intercourse sex with others. It’s primarily with one woman who reveals herself to be an Earth spy here to deal with things that used the battle above as a front. It turns kind of crazy and chaotic from there as the two escape and there’s the fallout from the mini sexual revolution along the way as it shifts into chase material to carry into the next installment. Carey does a solid enough job in setting up this world while not digging into the details of how it operates, working it more as a space opera design, but plenty of the dialogue from Barbarella is just a little too on the nose for my tastes. Yarar’s artwork is solid but I’m hoping that over time we’ll see things shift to more creative and outlandish character/creature design as well as the settings and ships to take advantage of a really open sandbox.
In Summary:
Barbarella is off to a solid start here and it has potential, which is no surprise since the original work ran for a bit and had a lot of fun in that run. Giving Jean-Claude Forest’s work a new life is a daunting task but one that should be really embraced. Carey’s giving it a solid enough beginning here while leaving plenty to explore to be sure and I’m hoping that it gets the chance to do so because this is something that can just be fun – an area where Dynamite has succeeded well over the years with a range of older properties in giving them a new life. I’m not fully sold on Yarar’s artwork overall, though that may be the color design more than anything else, but this all has a lot of promise to it.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: December 6th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
