Most Local Comic Shops go all out with sales, promotions, door prizes and the like, and I’m fortunate enough to have a handful of stores in easy driving distance. A regular bounty of .25-1.00 books found their way into my collection as well as the usual assortment of freebies.
Let’s have a look, shall we?
Titan Comics
A Brief History of Tank Girl
Written by: Alan Martin
Cover by: Jamie Hewlett
Drawn by: Brett Parson, Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, Jonathan Edwards
Lettered by: Brett Parson
The world’s counterculture, post-apocalyptic punk rock princess is back and swinging thanks to Titan Comics.
Taking place on Tank Girl’s birthday, this one-shot follows her nearly 30-year running tradition of tracking down her childhood bully and punching him in the face.
This year, however, the aforementioned bully gives her the slip.
Despondent, Tank Girl’s friends attempt to cheer her up via stories of the good ol’ days.
The two tales are each illustrated by a different artist and have stylistic variances from the bookend story. The opening and closing segments are crisply rendered and detailed while the intermediate segments have rough, impressionist art.
That tonal shift serves to illustrate the hazy, amorphous nature of memory vs. the clarity of the now and is a great storytelling device.
Or I’m overthinking it and the choice was less an aesthetic one and more a practical one...
Anyway, it’s good to see some familiar faces like Jet Girl and Booga, Tank Girl’s mutant kangaroo boyfriend. My only note, it’s not even a complaint, really, is the shift in setting.
I’m by no means an authority on the comic, but the early Dark Horse books presented the world of Tank Girl as a post-apocalyptic paramilitary counterculture wasteland Outback.
The more recent books feature things like suburbia and cake shops.
Perhaps there always was this juxtaposition of Mad Max wasteland and Middle Class Britain (or Australia, or America; the sensibilities are universal) and I missed the nuance.
I’ll have to revisit those older books and see.
Leaving the Tank behind, we move on to:
IDW Publishing
Transformers: Unicron #0
Written by: John Barber
Art by: Alex Milne
Colors by: Sebastian Cheng
Letters by: Tom B. Long
My love of giant transforming robots aside, I don’t, as a rule, buy Transformers comics. I like what I’ve read, but IDW and Dreamwave have bombarded the market with so many titles, spin-offs, and one-shots to manage.
Well, that I’m inclined to manage, anyway...
Free Transformers comics will always find a home in my collection, however.
Especially ones featuring a sweet, sweet villain like Unicron.
First appearing in the phenomenal 1980s Transformers animated movie, Unicron is a planet-sized Transformer who bebops around the universe and eats other planets.
He’s Transformer Galactus.
And that is just fucking awesome.
This one-shot is a prelude for what is most assuredly an irritating crossover mega event. IDW currently holds the licenses for several top Hasbro properties, most prominently G.I. Joe and Transformers, and is insistent on cramming them together.
I’m a big fan of the Micronauts and Rom, but I sure as hell never wondered what it would be like if they were in a comic with Roadblock, Optimus Prime, every character from M.A.S.K., and the Visionaries.
Yeah, the goddamn Visionaries.
You remember them, right? The toys had little chest-hologram stickers.
Not like Battle Beasts, though.
It’s okay, nobody else cared either...
Anyway, this book focuses on Rom and the Transformers attempting to evacuate Rom’s homeworld of Galador before it’s devoured by Unicron.
Did I say Galador?
I meant Elonia...
There’s no knock-down, drag-out robot fights here, but there’s plenty of action and drama. All of my old friends are here: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Arcee, and even Soundwave, who evidently defected from the Decepticons and is now working with the Autobots.
Hooray!
Aside from evacuation efforts, the story weaves the Transformers into Rom’s origin with the reveal that his armor was crafted from the body of a fallen Transformer titan. Okay, completely unnecessary but pretty rad.
We also get to see a contingent of Rom’s fellow Spaceknights get wrecked and that was great, because those characters are super-lame.
Did I say Spaceknights?
I meant Solstar Order...
The art and colors are phenomenal here. Crisp, bright, and tight, just how I like. The best part was you can look at a Transformer and recognize which character you’re looking at. There’s none of the vague, over-designed bullshit that Michael Bay has been cramming down the public gullet here. If I’m looking at Wheeljack, I know I’m looking at Wheeljack.
BECAUSE HE LOOKS LIKE WHEELJACK.
Those wretched movies all but abandoned the Transformers style guide and it’s outstanding to recognize familiar characters on sight.
Thank you for not attempting to reinvent the wheel, IDW.
These two books were honestly my top two FCBD picks. My compatriots have already covered a few of my other choices like The Tick and the godawful Spider-Man book, and I’ll leave the readers to ponder my choices and hopefully purchase some comics featuring girls, tanks, and robots.
Perhaps a robot-girl-tank...
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