DC Comics Bombshells chapter 60 Review and **SPOILERS**

Rhino What Boys Want

Written By: Marguerite Bennett

Art By: Laura Braga, J. Nanjan

Lettered By: Wes Abbott

Digital Price: $0.99

On Sale Date: September 9, 2016

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

After twelve years of New York City public education, I think we got up to the 1960s once. Mind you, for many of those years I wasn’t studying modern American history, being that playing with blocks and learning to add single-digit numbers took precedence. Still, from at least seventh to twelfth grade, I took what was essentially the same history class over and over: beginning with the American Revolution (being the most important fixed point in world history, naturally) we would work our way through the War of 1812, then the Civil War, then the Spanish-American War and World War I, then a little cultural history about Prohibition (and, if the teacher was cool, gangsters), then World War II and the Korean War and—like I say, this only happened once—then we would discuss the French war with Indochina, which of course becomes our Vietnam War about a decade later. All those years learning the same thing, and we only came to something that even affected our generation in a palpable way the one time. Not to mention this real preponderance on wars! Luckily, I found a book titled the Epic of New York City by Edward Robb Ellis that showed me history could be an engaging story, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Indeed, Ellis wrote two books about the American homefront during the World Wars, something I would personally have found more interesting than the obsessive charting of military maneuvers, titled A Nation in Torment and Echoes of a Distant Thunder (for WWI and II, respectively) that are worth checking out. If you want to learn about the the action from World War II, then read DC Comics’ Bombshells, which I did as can be proven if you read on!

Explain It!

Opening the last chapter of “Men Who Would Be Kings,” Batwoman, Catwoman, Hawkwoman, and Reneé Montoya stand before a gigantic mechanical rhinoceros, revealed to them by Vixen and dug from the ground by her people. Vixen says she collected everyone—that’s everyone but Sheira aka Hawkwoman, who is Vixen’s long-time girlfriend—very carefully for this mystery, and Montoya specifically because she studied these mechanical monsters while in Spain in the early 1930s. Seems these are occult objects, prized by Mr. Hitler himself, who has a small one in his personal safe. Are you guys sure this isn’t a paperweight? My grandpa had a paperweight that looked like a bear, as a kid I swore it moved sometimes. The implication is that there are more of these mechanical beasts—Vixen and Batwoman tussled with one years back—and Hitler is collecting ‘em all for his Nazi army. Just then, the mechanical rhinoceros wakes up! Or whatever is the robot equivalent to that.

Hawkwoman tries slamming it with her mace, but the force sends her flying backwards. The rhinoceros is about to trample Reneé, when Batwoman says some mumbo jumbo that teleports her away from harm and stops the rhinoceros’ charge? That’s a thing she can do? Just then, Cheetah (who, as a Bombshell, is dressed very smartly in a safari outfit complimented by a cheetah-spotted sash) appears on the back of the rhino, wielding a shotgun talking trash about Batwoman. Reneé and Batwoman simultaneously reflect on her being the woman that killed Jason—I’m only assuming this is Bombshell Universe’s Jason Todd—and from the looks of the flashback they were both best buds with him. Before they can drift further into nostalgia, though, Cheetah blasts the back of the rhino and it emits some noise that draws a mechanical cheetah and a mechanical three-headed ostrich from the ground! Renee shoots Cheetah off the rhino, and she’s menaced by the mechanical cheetah. Hawkwoman tells Batwoman to use her mumbo jumbo again, to save Cheetah, but instead she runs in and starts wailing on it with a bat! The mechanical cheetah understandably brushed it off and bites Cheetah’s arm, inserting some colorful wires that seem to give her some kind of command over the mechanized monsters. Eyes glowing like the fakey jungle beasts, Cheetah hops aboard the cheetah (I know, it’s confusing if you read this aloud) and essentially says, “Mwah hah hah, I have the power!”

So that was pretty crazy. All three chapters of this story seemed so unique: the first was like a wild heist, the second was a twentieth century history lesson, and the third was just the sort of humans-on-robots action you expect to see in comic books. I know print issues are usually three digital issues stitched together, but this is three digital chapters by three different artists, so I’d be interested to see how that works. I also understand that this three-part story will be just an issue in the series in the print world, but I would have liked to see some kind of real conclusion, instead of another cliffhanger to the next chapter. I know, I know…this is a comic serving two masters, so I can’t expect it to work in my Lite Brite world, but I gotta be me. The art is very nice, a more standard illustration style than the previous chapter but executed very well with some nice reaction panels. This is a pretty cool story, even if I’m still catching up to stuff. But if it’s going to be better read in single print issues, then I should probably go that route.

Bits and Pieces:

A pretty action-packed chapter that reveals some more of the tortured history of the Bombshells, as well as a weird ability of Batwoman's (that might be new only to me.) Though this is a three-part story, the conclusion isn't very...conclusive, and this will probably make a very cogent print issue. As digitals, though, it's a little disappointing. The art is solid, and I did think this chapter was good fun. Just didn't seem like the ending to anything.

7/10