Things take an unusual turn.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tim Seeley
Art: Gisele Lagace
Colors: Carlos Badilla Z
Letterer: Crank!
What They Say:
The XXX-plorers are trapped on the body of a dead space god with demented tech billionaire Hannah Dorsch! Can they escape to complete their mission, or will they be forced to accept an indecent proposal? Meanwhile, Cherry Popstar tests her power.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With fifteen issues behind the original run, Tim Seeley and Sara Beattie had a blast with the book and I thoroughly enjoyed a sex-positive fun romp with the characters. The lack of these kinds of books in the market continues to frustrate me in a different way so Money Shot was a welcome return to something we barely see anymore. With this new series, the opening installment changed it up a bit as it’s just Tim Seeley writing it and previous artist Caroline Leigh Layne isn’t involved with it. Seeley delivers more of what we got from the original work so it’s a fairly seamless transition there while Gisele Lagace took the art duties. Lagace works well from what the prior run had while bringing her own style to it and in some ways it reminds me of the old Playboy and Hustler types of comics we used to get back in the day, especially with the addition of Cherry at the end here.
With this installment, the team has found themselves being drawn into the husk of a fifteen-mile-long alien woman from millennia ago that has been drifting through space. She was killed by a particular virus that has now taken human form but is a kind of biomechanical thing that has helped Hannah stay alive, who is quite keen to see the team. She’s managed to get into good shape thanks to the Cuckovid virus thing but it’s all part of her big plan to get revenge on Frowd, since it’s all just a giant tech bro fight. There’s a lot of familiar modern Very Online stuff going on in the book and it’s certainly fine and no more dated than any other comic book over the past fifty years, but it’s certainly exhausting to some degree even if the tech bro in Hannah is making it clear that she’s an utterly reprehensible person that nobody should want to spend any time around.
What we get initially with all of this are Chris and the others trying to basically make all things good and just get back to civilization. They’re even willing to give Hannah access to the transmat thing to get out of here but she can’t believe anyone would or should do anything for free. That leads into a problematic sequence with Annie and Cuckovid getting it on, which Doug puts up a brave front about, but it still just leaves everything going back to Hannah being the worst and trying to screw everyone over. When even the sentient virus is telling you to dial it back some you know you’ve gone too far. But that’s not how Hannah operates and it just means she’s going to be a terrible person through and through, though at least the quick exit for everyone finally lands them into the same place where Cherry is because that storyline needs some love.
In Summary:
Money Shot has a decent issue but sometimes, like a good chunk of the run, it’s a bit too much of the Very Online world for me. And I say that as someone that’s Very Online and I really don’t want to inflict that on others. It’s fun to see how Doug handles things here and I’m curious how Annie will handle it going forward but I’m just glad that, for at least the moment, we can put Hannah in the rearview mirror until she surfaces again as you know she will. The blending in of Cherry and her storyline next will be helpful and I’m curious to see what the bigger story percolating for a few pages here with the Covalescene will turn into as it becomes more of a main piece.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Vault Comics<
Release Date: August 16th, 2023
MSRP: $4.99
