Written by Ron Marz
Illustrated by Sami BasriWho is Voodoo? Is she hero, villain — or both? Learn the truth about Priscilla Kitaen as she leaves a trail of violence across America. Discover the new DCU through her eyes, because the things she sees are not always what they seem…
After last week’s controversial yet supposedly sexy comics, DC now has a book starring a biracial bisexual shape-changing anti-hero alien stripper. Why Voodoo of all characters from Wildstorm deserved an ongoing is beyond me, but let’s talk about the book after the cut anyway.
Some spoilers are discussed, but nothing that should effectively hurt your enjoyment of the comic. Take that as you will.
A long, long time ago in a galaxy not that far away, Ron Marz wrote a comic book. This comic, earnest in it’s original intentions to show off villainy, very quickly became infamous for it’s content, and became “that book” of his career. The issue’s purpose was never to be sexist or degrading, but it still became the flagship book of the “Let’s Treat Women In Comics Better” movement, as led by Gail Simone. Ron Marz certainly had a long and influential run on Green Lantern and more, but despite writing several pivotal scenes for the character and introducing the beloved Kyle Rayner, this one event keeps coming back to haunt him. (For those playing the home game, this would be Green Lantern v3 #54, aka “the fridge issue.”)
I’ve always gotten the impression, despite Marz adamantly denying the implication in interviews I’ve read with him, that Marz is still trying to “make up” for this action. I don’t think Marz isn’t proud of the event as it’s impact and importance gives credit to his name alone, but he does seem to want to write positive female-centric books now in an almost apologetic fashion. Marz’s recent work with books like Witchblade, Angelus, Velocity and Magdalena say to me that Marz doesn’t want to be known as the guy who wrote about a woman getting stuffed in a fridge, but rather a guy who writes “strong female superhero” books (however you want to define that). Yet, it seems to me that he could certainly be going about it in better ways, especially with Witchblade and Angelus having that unfortunate T&A stigma to them given their costumes alone (which can turn off new fans to the interior content).
Now with Voodoo added to that list, it does seem like another entry into Marz’s ongoing saga to make that fridge story a distant memory — but it’s not exactly the best gun in his arsenal.
Voodoo historically is not that different from her new rebooted persona, that of an alien exotic dancer acclimating to life on Earth after a troubled past on her home planet. While she’s certainly gone through what can only be described as a wardrobe malfunction, the basic elements of the character introduced in WildCATS are still here. The only inherent difference is that while the Voodoo of days past was a superhero right off the bat, this Voodoo looks like she’s going to have a bit of a road to walk. The book finds a young Priscilla flaunting what she’s got for cash while being investigated by a mysterious (assumedly government) agent, who thinks she is a sleeper cell for an upcoming invasion of Earth (assumedly by Daemonites, if this is in fact a relaunch of traditional WildCATs elements). It seems like Marz wants to write a slow burning sci-fi story here, and it’s rather noticeable; the issue is intensively new reader friendly, with all of the backstory delivered in a sleeker way than what was done with Grifter.
The only issue here is one thing just keeps getting in the way.
I suppose it only makes sense to talk about the elephant in the room for this issue, and that is it’s “adult” content. Right when you open the book, the first thing you see is the above image of Voodoo down on all fours in underwear, with a giant splash page that is easily just described as “boobs.” It’s a completely surface value thing; outside of reiterating the fact that she is an exotic dancer, there is no inherent reason to have the book centralize in a strip club for as long as it does. The only reason for this page’s existence that I can glean is to show that women are pretty, to reiterate that pretty women are nice to look at, and to solidify the fact that Sami Basri draws pretty women — so why not just go to town? If Voodoo was perhaps an exotic dancer for the duration of the entire series then it might make sense, or have more value, especially considering her interactions with the other dancers, but — spoiler alert — she quits her job at the end of the first issue. So what was the point?
Continued belowWhile Voodoo’s history as an exotic dancer has played a part of her stories from time to time, it was never one of the overtly important things about her. This was just something used for background to inform her growth, in the same way that we don’t spend every issue of a Batman comic with Bruce crying about his dead parents. Why? Because that wouldn’t accomplish anything at all. The original WildCATs stories focused more on the cool space adventures of the 90s, and it was only in later volumes that the dancing became more intricate and central. So if the DCnU is a back to basics endeavor to draw new readers, then you’d think it might be more important to deal with her alien heritage or superhero tendencies, maybe even to have her in some cool action adventure in space with guns and space battles and whatnot, as opposed to just showing how well she can shake it like a polaroid picture.
Between an introductory pole dance and a final private lap dance, we get it. In no shorter terms do I say that while it is not impossible to find affection for the character here, the only reason I read the comic all the way through is because I had to review it. In any other scenario, I would’ve opened the first page in the shop, put the comic back on the shelf and moved along, all the while thinking to myself, “I wish Basri was drawing something else.”
It’s not my intent to completely blast the title. Upon finishing the book, I didn’t dislike Voodoo, and while I prepped myself extensively beforehand for what I assumed would be a fairly distasteful “sexy” romp, I found the issue to be much more affable than I would’ve assumed. There are things to like in Voodoo; making assumptions and guessing ahead, it seems like Marz might have some interesting adventures planned for the character, with her powers made rather abundantly clear. I’d even be interested if there is a chance of getting the old gang back together, and seeing a crossover between this title and Grifter. Perhaps it is just my previous encounters with Voodoo from WildCATs, Wildcats, Wildcats 3.0 and Wildcats v4, but I do want to see what is going to happen to the character next and the issue does leave me interested enough in perhaps viewing a second issue. As much as the visual elements lead you in the complete opposite direction, a closer read of the book does reveal a character that deserves developing and following. This isn’t just an issue about PG-13 nudity, that is simply the most obvious element.
I should also note that at no point does it feel like Marz is being disrespectful to the character. There are some ridiculous poses and the book very much falls in line with the argument of “this is what men think women are like”, but it is important to note that Marz never takes the whole “stripper with a heart of gold” in as ridiculous a direction as something like the film Sucker Punch. You can tell from reading the script Marz isn’t actively trying to write disrespectful characters, and that most of the incidents that raise my eyebrow seem accidental. This doesn’t save the book from any of my previous concerns and the book suffers from a severe overdose of assuming the reader won’t view T&A as just T&A, but credit is due for at least looking like he tried.
It’s also impossible not to praise Basri’s work. It’s hard to somewhat admonish the book for one thing yet praise it for the same thing, but it also stands as noteworthy that Basri is damn good. While I think the story deserved to take place in a locale that can’t be defined as “inside and/or outside a strip club,” Basri does a great job with the script he is given and delivers a very tight and well executed comic. I quite enjoyed Basri’s work on Power Girl recently, and he continues to deliver with Voodoo, although admittedly in a completely different way. Basri definitely puts in a lot of curvaceous women into the book with some obvious male-gaze in mind, but in general everyone looks good in a Basri drawn comic, including the goofy underage random male antagonist. His angular and manga-influenced illustration make every character beautiful, and the color work of Jessica Kholinne makes everything pop off the page, which is important given the setting and the obvious/stereotypical lighting you would expect from said setting. The two are a dynamite artistic team, and the book would assuredly be worth following just to see the two collaborate further.
Continued belowVoodoo isn’t inherently a bad comic by any means, and after last week’s digital fracas from Catwoman and Red Hood you’d immediately assume that Voodoo would be easy fodder from the same argument. In many ways it is, but Voodoo was never a character to “look up to” by any means. She’s certainly gone through a regression, but outside of a few visually ridiculous moments (that private lap dance — seriously?), the book doesn’t seem like it plans to drag her through the mud. Even so, there was probably an easier way to address her past than to have an entire issue in a strip club. Given the T For Teen rating on the cover, I’d venture a guess that most of the readership for the title haven’t even been inside of a strip club before (not that I want to make blanket assumptions), and with that in mind there’s really only one reason to buy the book.
In the end, the good of this issue doesn’t outweigh what can’t even be described as “bad” and can only be described as “gratuitous.” I can’t imagine that the way to bring new readers to DC Comics is to show them characters they’ve never heard of performing somewhat embarrassing acts for 20 pages, especially when you’ve got four books of Batman punching people to choose from. Chances are those new readers are just going to buy the Batman books, because it’d probably be tough to explain to mom why you have a copy of Voodoo hidden under your pillow or in a sock drawer.
Final Verdict: 5.0 – Browse
As fellow writer David also pointed out to me, this comic goes quite well with the Drive soundtrack, particularly “Nightcall” by Kavinsky.
