“Vixen in Pantheon: Impala”
Creative Staff:
Story: Geoffrey Thorne
Art: ChrisCross, Jordi Tarragona
Colors: Wil Quintana
Letterer: Rob Leigh
What They Say:
Mari McCabe is many things: superhero, model, activist; but can she add god-killer to the list? Vixen teams up with Dr. Mist and Impala of the Global Guardians to face down an ancient deity that’s taken over the body of a scientist investigating powerful magical artifacts. Vixen will need to dig deep and use all the abilities in the animal kingdom to face down this powerful primeval threat!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Having enjoyed the character of Vixen for a good number of years, I was excited to see her getting the leading story in the Truth & Justice series. The character doesn’t have a great history of having solid stories told and ends up being roped into some familiar boxes, which sadly happens here again. It’s my first experience with Geoffrey Thorne on writing and it’s decent at best here as the plot is fairly standard but the structure and execution just feel off and kind of jagged. To make matters worse, while ChrisCross and Jordi Tarragona put in some decent artwork for it, the layout for it when read through the browser is just awkward in how it moves instead of being full-screen for it. So there are jagged motions in going through some of the pages that should be a full browser page as opposed to the regular books that would use guided view. It just feels mis-formatted.
In terms of story, we’re introduced to Mari McCabe as she’s doing a new photoshoot while in Africa and lining up for it to be all local-produced, but her agent or producer is just making everything harder by leaning into the terrible cliches and the like, frustrating her to no end. What saves Mari from having to deal with this for the moment is the arrival of Impala from the Global Guardians, which operates under a UN Mandate. He’s come to secure her help with a problem nearby where they don’t want to call the Justice League in because to do so would expose these very powerful and top tier heroes to an ancient artifact that would be problematic. Mari’s all for it as Impala has a very Idris Elba thing going on and while he has Flash-light powers, it’s that physique that she wants to know more about.
The race to get to the site is pretty fun as the two head there but mostly because Mari gets headjacked by Mist for the GGI to fill her in on things as the guy running the show for the UN. That the whole research dig was a partnership between the UN and Gorilla City is interesting in itself and because both know some bad stuff could be found by digging into the past when it comes to magic. So working together like that makes sense and Impala being assigned to it to watch it makes sense. He was just fast enough to get away before the artifact went live and was able to make a good call and run for help. We don’t get a lot with what’s going on at the site, though Mari naturally smacks around the regular guy that’s been taken over and is apparently a god now, but that’s par for the course when it comes to Vixen.
In Summary:
With so many digital-first books in the last few months, even if a good chunk of them came from re-purposed Target/Walmart anthology books, DC Comics raised the bar on what to expect from projects like these. Truth & Justice doesn’t hold up well when placed against the recent Injustice or DCeased books nor along with things like Challenge of the Super Sons. This feels more like some of what they were putting out five or six years ago where it needs more editing, formatting, and better planning on the front-end to deliver a better story. Yes, it’s just a buck (and even less for Unlimited members), but this one just feels like a first draft before any serious tightening up to get it ready for the real thing.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: January 8th, 2021
MSRP: $0.99
