Sex and the Subterranean City
Written By: Amanda Conner & Jimmy
Palmiotti
Art By: Elsa Charretier, Hi-Fi
Letters By: Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $2.99
On Sale Date: April 13, 2016
**Non-Spoilers and Score At The Bottom**
Did you know there are a
lot of people who believe that the Earth is hollow and that a race of humanoids
live underneath the planet’s crust? According to Admiral Richard Byrd, a race
of big-headed bipeds lived underneath the icy Antarctic shelf, and they told
him to tell humanity to stop fucking around with nuclear weapons. This was a
hugely-decorated pilot who had made the treacherous journey to the South Pole
three times before! According to Byrd, this subterranean race was the source of
the disc-shaped UFOs that had just begun to appear in skies all around the
world, sent as a dire warning against nukes. And there are people who believe
this today, who claim that our retribution is at hand even though we’ve created
hazardous materials since that make nuclear weapons look like talcum powder.
This has little to do with the issue of Starfire
I’m about to review, but it’s sure to be the most entertaining and informative
bit of the article. Yeah, it’s one of those issues. Read on if you’re
masochistic like that.
Explain It!:
Our Three Amigas: Kori,
Stella and Atlee are enjoying some much-deserved rest and relaxation after
thwarting an attack by those whatchamacallits at the behest of whatsizname. Now
Atlee is gonna show her gal pals how they get down in the underworld of Strata!
When they’re not being attacked by assholes, that is. First stop, a dance club
where Stella gets so drunk she needs to be carried back to her room by a
talking blue hedgehog! He admits that he intended to screw her, but being that
he’s a gentlemarsupial and her two super-powered friends are basically in the
same room with him, he’s glad to be a good Samaritan. Kori gives him a pat on
the head, which makes him ejaculate a bunch of Tribbles that call Atlee and
Kori “mama” and make them giggle. Then they all sleep in the same cot, where
Stella snores away and Kori and Atlee chatter like a couple of hens. That’s
something I should have mentioned at the outset: these ladies can’t stop
talking for a fucking second. This thing should have been a picture book, there
are so many words per panel. I’ve heard of “girl talk” but this is on the level
of something you might experience at Guantanamo Bay.
Back on the surface, Sol
is driving around in his pickup truck with Kori’s pet Syl’Khee, which she
abandoned almost immediately after it hatched, when the pink caterpillar takes
over Sol’s mind and starts driving the truck. After destroying a muscle car
with its eye beams, Syl’Khee drives Sol to see his Aunt, with whom I guess he
needs to reconcile? I forget. Down in Strata, the girls go to a natural spa
that will make them more emotional and loosen their tongues…great, just what
this book needed. While under the influence of relaxation, Stella admits to
Kori that she doesn’t want her dating Sol because he might hurt him—emotionally
or physically—so Kori decides the best thing for her to do is leave. Perhaps
exit the series altogether. Maybe even turn up in a post-Rebirth Teen Titans title. That much is implied,
but the world is her oyster.
After all this, it’s time
for the ladies to return home, so they get into their transparent bathysphere
and float up to the surface, chattering the entire goddamned time. It’s the
kind of shit that will have you checking to see if your gun is clean, the
dialogue is so insipid and incidental. Back in Florida, Atlee admits that she
may have miscalculated the time spent in Strata, so that instead of being away
for a few days, they were actually away for a week and a half. This means
Kori’s lost her job, which I think was working at fake SeaWorld? Whatever it
was, it’s just another tie to this life shunted off in time for Kori to make
her grand exit, which she is prepared to do until she sees that Fantasy Fest is
happening! Fantasy Fest is an event that happens around Halloween in Key West
where there’s a lot of nudity and popping of amyl nitrate, so it makes sense
that a party animal like Kori would want to stay. Last chance to see a nip
slip!
This book exists primarily
to pad out the schedule, I guarantee it. I normally don’t like it when
reviewers say “nothing happens” in a comic book, but this time I can say:
nothing of consequence happens, aside from Kori being pushed into place to
divest herself of this life and go on to whatever title post-Rebirth. There is
so. Much. Fucking. Dialogue. And almost none of it matters, just endless
yakkety yak that I suppose is meant to exhibit what swell buds these women are.
The saving grace of this book is the artwork by Elsa Charretier and Hi-Fi, it
looks like neon Darwyn Cooke by way of Jack Kirby, and not a bit of that is
meant to denigrate the work of Ms. Charretier. I really liked it, and if DC
Editorial isn’t beating down her door to draw the next resurrection of Fourth
World properties, then they’re slipping. The fact that she’s not involved in
this “Kamandi Challenge” thing DC is running next year is a crime.
Bits and Pieces
If you like the incessant back-and-forth chatter of the Gilmore Girls or your typical Brian Michael Bendis comic, then this is the book for you. I hope the letterer got overtime for this issue. Worth crowing about is the wonderful artwork, which has a classic look with a modern twist brought by some vibrant colors. Otherwise, this issue was a snorefest that exists primarily as a bridge to the next and final issue in the series, where we just might see boobies!
6.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment