If your biggest turnoff is ahegao…
Creative Staff:
Story: Tim Seeley, Sara Beattie
Art: Caroline Leigh Layne
Colors: Kurt Michael Russell
Letterer: Crank!
What They Say:
As the XXX-plorers reel from the loss of one of their members (heh…members), they face a major budget shortfall and a lack of desire to keep the hits coming. Chris deals with the unofficial parody films starring the XXX-XXX-plorers, while Annie has to figure out why all of their remaining power is going to a backwater planet…and rescue dear Doug while she’s at it!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The return of Money Shot after several months away was definitely welcome, as it was able to move into a new arc and welcome a new artist that provided their own spin on the design while still being similar on several levels. Tim Seeley and Sara Beattie have a good handle on the style and tone of the series and there’s a good bit of fun here, including more Vault Undressed covers. The introduction of artist Caroline Leigh Layne last issue definitely was a lot of fun as her enthusiasm was spot on for the book and only expands more with this one as we see a range of new situations to illustrate. The diverse cast continues to feel a little more diverse in type and body here than before, which works well.
The general premise at this point continues to be that there’s little money to fund the jumps and the jumps they are doing aren’t generating a lot of revenue. The team has come back from their latest one and all they have is about ten minutes of footage that ends with some bad violence material unrelated to the sex itself. That has everyone taking a break and dealing with personal life issue stuff, though the main focus is really on Chris. She’s still struggling since the loss of Bree and we see that when she isn’t getting herself off to videos of Bree’s new video venture, she’s trying to undermine it by figuring out if there’s something illegal behind it. That does have Omar trying to get through to her with what she’s actually up to when he checks in on her but that almost leads to some nookie between the two, which doesn’t get going in reality. But the subtext feels strong and the mood is right, at least until details of Bree’s job start to come into focus.
Elsewhere, we get Annie trying to figure out what’s going on with Little Shot as he’s acting weird while under little power, since they have little funds for more. Discovering that Doug has been doing shots himself, she heads off to see where he is now and it turns out he’s on some planet with deer-like people and engaged heavily in sexual congress with them – even though he found them disgusting previously. It explains where all their funds have been going as he’s been returning here constantly and claims to be in mad love, making it clear he’s completely under the influence. But all this does is place our two leads on a world where things are going to go very badly for them and those around them as they’ve been interacting with what you could call the sheep of the sentient species on the planet, and now the wolves are showing themselves.
In Summary:
Money Shot delivers another solid installment here while not leaning heavily into any particular arc. We can see a couple of different storylines that can move to the forefront and run alongside each other so I’m excited to see how that plays out. There’s a good bit of material happening here that’s got the sexy times, the solid character material, and some engaging science fiction weirdness as well. The team is really pulling it off well in creating something that I’m not seeing elsewhere, though I’ll continue to admit that just the openness about the sexuality side continues to be a huge draw. It’s just so refreshing since it’s something that’s become far less of a thing for so many over the years yet so many comics (and printing places) won’t touch anything above PG-13.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Vault Comics
Release Date: May 26th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
