Lois Lane #11 Review

Transference Is The Name Of The Game

Written By: Greg Rucka
Art By: Mike Perkins, Andy Troy, Simon Bowland
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: June 9, 2020


We've hit the penultimate issue of Lois Lane and our journey throughout this max-series has been a strange one, with the stories changing from one thing to another, but most recently we've been dealing with the idea that the Multiverse is converging together, making reality and memories leak into each other, but we've also been dealing with an assassin who's been hired to kill Lois Lane.  In the previous issue, the Kiss of Death had Lois dead to rights, before Lois' team teleported the killer away and transferred Sister Clarice to where Lois was, while bringing the skull-faced, gun-toting murderer right to Renee Montoya and Jessica Midnight.  Sadly though, the Kiss of Death was already firing her gun, causing Renee to get shot once the spell was complete.  Let's jump into this issue and learn the fate of our favorite faceless female vigilante.  Let's check it out.

So it was a good thing that we got that out of nowhere explanation about the Multiverse doing something strange last issue because that's the crux of what we'll be dealing with here because not only have Lois Lane, Jessica Midnight, Renee Montoya and Sister Clarice been having memories that aren't their own, from another world, but it seems like the Kiss of Death is having them too now and in those memories, she was the lover of Renee Montoya...... This seems to have always been the plan since Lois saw the attraction that she and Renee had when Kiss of Death originally came after them disguised as a maid....... So obviously, a lover from another world.

Since we mention transference in relation to magic throughout this issue, that seems to be the only way to do things and the magic concept that makes everything okay in the end.  Transfer life to anti-life, face to no-face...... it's all rather convenient and really comes out of nowhere and like previously, I'm wondering how the hell we got to this point from what we started with at the beginning of this series.  Ultimately though, the Religion of Crime seems to be involved out of nowhere now, Lois has a new member of her "Multiversal Detective Squad" and it's time to figure out what's been happening and boy, I hope that that final issue has some serious wrap up because I'm really lost from the progression of this series.

All in all, I'm still not a fan of Mike Perkins' style for this series, but the writing has just beaten me down with its constant shifts and ideas because they just seem out of nowhere and never feel like they mesh completely with what we're dealing with.  We've got one issue left and I can't for the life of me see that final issue being something that makes all of this worthwhile because who knows if the tone of the book will want to shift again since this story just seems to want to go wherever it wants to at any given time.

Bits and Pieces:

I'm sad to say that this has been a mess of a series that has just gotten weirder as it's been going and that doesn't change here with our new Multiverse angle to this maxi.  Yeah, the plot turn was odd last issue, but when you add magic into it, it just makes everything seem more unfocused and that you can essentially wave a wand at something and make it go away, while just saying transference over and over again.  I'm not a fan of the art in this book and I can only hope that the final issue puts some care into making this series really come together.

4/10