Written by Andy Hartnell
Illustrated by Chris MaddenFor the first time ever, creators J. Scott Campbell and Andy Hartnell introduce a new Danger Girl to the team! Who is she? What are her skills? Where is she from? What are her measurements? You’ll find those answers and more as she joins the world’s sexiest spy agency in their most explosive adventure yet! And not only that, but we also up the action and thrills by welcoming soon-to-be-superstar, artist Chris Madden to his first-ever Danger Girl epic! Consider yourself debriefed!
Danger Girl, the popular 90’s Image Comics book is back! They’ve teamed with the Indie Juggernaut IDW Publishing to further the adventures of Abbey, Sydney and the gang as they jet set across the world doing…spy stuff. Or something! I have honestly never read a Danger Girl book before this issue, so I thought I’d check it out.
Why don’t you come along past the jump to see exactly what I’m talking about, huh?
Sexism is over! Strong Female Characters!
A few months ago, popular web-cartoonist Kate Beaton created what could quite possibly be the most biting satire about comics since Watchmen. As scathing as it is funny, the Strong Female Characters “issue” of Hark! A Vagrant highlighted a disturbing trend in comics with regards to its empowerment of women. The criticism is that while these characters are presented as being “strong female characters,” they’re actually caricatures that are objectified and actually do nothing to empower, well, anyone (except male readers).
Perhaps the most disturbing and disappointing part of this comic is that it doesn’t deviate from the SFC comic one iota. The sexy spies are put into impossible poses and arch their backs at the worst times, all so the reader (who is likely one of those male readers) can fully, erm, appreciate Abbey’s butt, or, can adequately….behold Sydney’s chest. It’s literally a remake of the comic, without the satirical tone. It’s played straight. Oh, there’s humor in it, but it just falls flat.
Speaking of flat, the art doesn’t exactly jump off the page either. There are some action scenes, and heaven help him, Chris Madden tries his best to emulate the style of the series creator, J. Scott Campbell. However, his action sequences just fall flat. When he’s not putting the women in ridiculous poses, the characters are just entirely uninteresting to look at, except for the leader-ish guy, whose name is Deuce. He’s actually a lot of fun to look at, and the best way to describe him is that he’s a mix between Sean Connery in his post-James Bond Prime (think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and Liam Neeson’s Hannibal in The A-Team. But from the pencils to the coloring, the book is just not interesting to look at, at all.
At least the art matches the character work from the writing. Every character is an also-ran from a bad 80’s action dramedy, including that Deuce gentleman. And in addition to the plot being strangely alike the Kate Beaton comic from last year, its plot was about as original as a Republican candidate likening themselves to something Ronald Reagan would somehow approve of.
Perhaps the book isn’t meant to be taken seriously. Perhaps it is a satire in some way I’m not seeing. I can’t really see how it could be, however. Instead it’s pedestrian in quite literally every way possible. Spend your money on good comics.
Final Score: 2.0 (It earns two points for having a character named “Deuce.”)
