The Gods Must Be Crazy
Written By:
Marguerite Bennett
Art By:
Mirka Andolfo, J. Nanjan
Lettered By:
Wes Abbott
Digital Price: $0.99
On Sale Date: September 16, 2016
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE
BOTTOM**
Too much history is taught as being dictated by
singular men or women (let’s face it, almost always men.) There have been and
are visionaries, both creative and destructive, to be sure. But their ideas
persist because we collectively allow them, by our direct support or uninvolved
apathy. Take, for instance, Adolf Hitler. Yes, this was a supremely horrible
individual, but he was elected to the position of Chancellor, and the rise of
his Third Reich aided by hailing salutes or resolute shrugs. And this happens
throughout history, we shove our shared achievements and deplorable actions
into figureheads to make it all more bite-sized and easier to swallow. Because
the toughest thing to swallow is that we are all culpable. Wherever we allow
injustice to persist, whenever the next generation is sacrificed for the
comforts of the current one, we are all guilty. It’s something to consider.
With that in mind, check out my review of DC
Comics’ Bombshells chapter 61, below!
Okay, this picks up right from where the last chapter
left off. I don’t know why I expected anything different, this is the
digital-first to a monthly print comic book. I think I got used to the rhythm
of Wonder Woman ’77, which is one-
and two-part chapters that eventually get cobbled into a print issue at some
point. But I can adjust! I will just remember this is a more serialized story
next week. So I mean this picks up right
from the last chapter—the opening panel is a reverse shot of the closing panel
from chapter 60. Cheetah is atop her ancient mechanical cheetah, which is
asking “Where are our temples? Where are our priests?” Yes, the mechanical
cheetah is saying this. I know it’s confusing, it reads better on the page than
it does being recapped by some joker. Hawkgirl (“-Girl?” I’d have thought it
would be “-woman”) refers to the unearthed robot animals as mechanical gods and
surmises they’ve possessed Cheetah, which is almost as pertinent a bit of news
as these beasts’ imminent attack! The Bombshells evade their blows—which
include some lasers shot from the eyes of a three-headed ostrich—and then the
mechanical rhino charges and almost kills Vixen’s dog, Blondie. That’s it, you
don’t mess with Blondie! Vixen pulls some Ox power and punches the metal
cheetah in the chin, sending that whole team of gods packing—but not before
Vixen pulls off the cheetah’s robotic tail!
Back at the archaeological dig, the Bombshells are
tending to their wounds while Hawkgirl tinkers with the cheetah’s tail. Vixen
tries to get Batwoman to give up the goods on how she knew the secret word to
shut down the mechanical rhino last chapter, but Batwoman brushes her
pheromones away and says it didn’t even work—the word was supposed to blow the
rhinoceros up! Way to evade the question, Kate. As Vixen resolves to get that dastardly
Hitler and probably smack Cheetah around a little too, Hawkgirl shows up with
some new weapons cobbled from the cheetah’s tail: some kind of gun for Reneé
Montoya and a new super whip for Catwoman. For Batwoman, a new baseball bad
that looks like it has just been hammered out of bronze somehow; its name is
“Hot Sauce.” Then, they hop into a new “animal-unaffiliated mobile” that could
be considered to represent any of the Bombshells, but let’s face it: it’s a
Batmobile. Uh, when was this put together? And how? And from what? Or was this
already here? I am so confused.
Elsewhere in the jungle, Cheetah is being
mind-controlled by the mechanical gods to reveal her purpose: her mistress sent
her here to find a secret weapon that would give her greater power than Adolf
Hitler, though its implied she would exist in tandem with Der Fürher. The gods
are like oh you can’t start the party without us, and by the way: we like blood
sacrifice. So annotate your Christmas list. The gods take over Cheetah’s mind completely
and make her nuts—and I guess this is Cheetah’s real origin story? She just had
a penchant for animal prints before, now she’s a full-on murderous jungle cat.
Newly brainwashed, Cheetah races atop her cheetah to the North Bank to meet her
mistress—the Baroness Paula von Gunther, excavating a giant metal hawk akin to
the other gods!
I have to mention the art first: it is so good. Save
for the animal-unaffiliated mobile, which looked a little too sketchy,
everything is so alive and expertly-rendered in a style that fits these
characters and this time period perfectly. I think I’ve seen Mirka’s work
before on other digitals, and I’d be glad to see some more of it. The story is
interesting, but seems a little padded—there’s a scene between the mechanical
animal gods and Cheetah whose dialogue is almost duplicated—and I have to
wonder why. I mean, this is essentially one-third of a print comic book, you’d
think maximizing story in as much of it as possible would be the thing to do. I
did like a lot of the interactions between characters, which are not described in
the recap, and they are pretty individualized for what is a fairly large cast.
This comic is a good time, and it only costs a buck! The only other “good time”
you can have for a dollar is probably illegal in most Northern states.
Bits and
Pieces:
7/10
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