Written by Garth Ennis
Illustrated by Adriano BatistaJennifer Blood is a suburban wife and mom by day, and a ruthless vigilante by night! Every day she makes breakfast, takes the kids to school, cleans the house, naps for an hour or two, makes dinner, puts the kids to bed, and kisses her husband goodnight. This suburban “punisher” is ready to be unleashed in a story that can only be told by the legendary Garth Ennis in this amazing 40 page first issue!
Garth Ennis is the writer of one of the best comic books of all time: Preacher. His contribution(s) to the Vertigo line proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a man fully capable of telling both a dark and wonderful story in the creator owned world. He also proved with the Punisher that he is capable of telling one helluva mob story. Jennifer Blood promises to be somewhere in a twisted combination of the two, but if recent issues of the Boys are any indication it seems that Ennis is shooting much heavier for shock value over story. Is Jennifer Blood a return to form with the first issue?
Find out after the cut.
Somewhere in between killing God, defiling Superman, and leading the Punisher on a massive killing spree, Garth Ennis has come at us with a brand new (assumedly to be) murder-tastic rampage of revenge and blood in the form of Jennifer Blood. The first story of his to be completely and strictly grounded in reality (as much as a soccer mom can turn into a killing machine is real) in quite some time, Jennifer Blood doesn’t begin with a bang or a fizzle. Rather, it begins with what is an admittedly completely love it or hate it tale in true Garth Ennis fashion.
Jennifer Blood begins as unassuming as you’d ever expect – we meet Jennifer, an average housewife who just happens to have absolute lust for blood. A very simple premise, and in the first issue the story comes out very slowly yet surely. With the first issue, Ennis is taking a much more moderate pace than usual, bringing us into the story as Jennifer Blood first comes out of the shed and onto the streets. He begins slowly, narrating the book from her diary and moving through the paces and leading towards the bloodshed in the later half of the book. It’s odd in that way – Ennis has usually been a “firing on all cylinders” kind of guy when it comes to violence, but the new approach here – taking time to focus on the home life and thus develop the soccer mom element of the character as opposed to the strict femme fatale aspect – makes for an interesting read. The violence here is also a lot more tame, although the inherent jab at sexuality is just about up to snuff to what you’d expect (“That’s right, boys. Boobies!”). It’s interesting to see Ennis, currently writing the Boys to try and “out Preacher” Preacher, toning it down in a comic that is still filled with headshots and eyeballs flying left and right.
Furthermore, on a certain level the title does have a twisted Dexter-esque vibe to it. Various fans were throwing this comparison around prior to the book’s release, and while motivations and the employing of actions might be different for the characters that same vibe of “normal person by day/psychopath by night” is here, and that’s ultimately one of the main things the title has going for it. Reading the book while listening to the recurring piano theme from Dexter adds a great vibe to certain scenes (especially at the end), and further issues can be assumed to have a lot of darkly comic moments. While this issue gives brief glimpses into the various lives of Jennifer, the issue does largely play as a set-up issue to the things that we can assume to see in the future (with issue 2 promising more violence as well as a meet and greet with new neighbors – oh boy!).
Adriano Batista makes an interesting new partner for Ennis as well. From the cover of the title, you might expect a book that is visually sunk into sexuality and the glitz and glam of “kiss kiss, bang bang” storytelling. However, with Ennis’ writing and Batista’s art, the book is oddly far from that. In fact, Batista doesn’t handle the character with the overt sleekness that you might expect from other artists. With the colors Romulo Fajardo Jr. give the issue, it actually has a much more dirty vibe than one might expect from a comic that is inherently pounding with sex appeal for fans, and in that lack of over-sexualizing the story it actually makes it much more endearing. The idea of a leather clad femme fatale is certainly enough to entice droves of fanboys to grab the book and watch her shoot guns, but there is so much effort artistically put elsewhere – even during the blatant sex scene (through which Jennifer muses about mold on a ceiling) – that it acts as an interesting ploy against expectations, and one that’s rather impressive/entertaining.
Continued belowThe title leaves a lot of open questions: why is Jennifer Blood killing her uncles? And how does she know so damn much about guns? Where the heck did this come from? But as a beginner, it’s still very much the type of book that you either immediately buy into or you don’t. Fans of Ennis won’t be disappointed, but on the same hand fans of Ennis might be disappointed. See, Ennis has done such a fantastic job as a writer in not pigeon holing himself to specific genres that the only thing that is often noticeable is the excessive violence. Jennifer Blood certainly has violence, but this is not on-par with anything we’ve seen in The Boys or the Preacher, and it’s only marginally close to some of the things we’ve seen in Punisher. That’s just at the start though – Jennifer Blood promises a lot to the future of the comic with it’s over-sized first issue. The question is, will these implied expectations feature pay-offs for fans? At a $3.99 price point in a market begging for more comics to be $2.99 (all actual definitions for the price point aside), many fans might just not be ready to invest with such a polarizing first issue.
Final Verdict: 8.4 – Buy
As a COMPLETE side note, does anyone else think it’s odd that housewife Jen would use her own first name in her extremely violent acts? Yes, she puts on a wig and whatnot, but maybe calling herself Jennifer Blood wasn’t the best idea ever. Perhaps Angela Blood? Or Helen Blood? At least to help throw off the impending police investigators off her trail.
