Barb Wire plays babysitter to a drunken Norse giant, and her and the non-chiseled looking goons are supposed to capture him. From the cover, this issue struck me the wrong way. I am a fan of Adam Hughes art and his covers, but this one tells me nothing about the story inside, and at this point, being the issue a huge showdown between Barb Wire and Wyvern Stormblüd, I’d like to see something regarding that. God forbid the cover was an action shot of Barb taking no shit and facing the giant head on. Nah, instead we get another teaser image of a naked Barb holding and gun and the title of the book as a tattoo on her arm. Get it guys? She’s hot AND tough. Hot diggity! But enough about the cover.
One thing that’s been going well for Barb Wire has been the art. Pencils, inks and colors have maintained a level of quality throughout from one issue to the other, and it’s the kind that makes me want to give it another shot because it looks clean, vibrant and well laid out. There’s a bit of a lack of freedom within the pages. For a concept as pulpy and crazy as Barb Wire, I’d like to see more splash pages of the mayhem that happens in Steel Harbor. all of that is pushed aside for the story… or lack thereof.
There is way too much unnecessary set-up happening. Barb Wire, the camera man, and the worst possible people to help her take down the Johan Hegg look-a-like. Almost half the book is spent setting up in an abandoned steel mill before Wyvern Stormblüd arrives. To the point that Chris Warner felt the need to point out that they were going to set up the motion detector cameras, so they will detect the motion of Stormblüd arriving. After a string of bad dialogue, forced cheesy lines even for a book like Barb Wire, Wyvern Stormblüd arrives. He surprises Barb and company with a crazy revelation about him and begins to destroy everything around him to get to a cunning Barb who uses her skills and quick wit to match Wyvern’s strength.
Half of Barb Wire #3 could have been reduced to 1-3 pages and still given us the same amount of information, plus gotten to our protagonist kicking ass a lot faster. This book felt forcibly dragged out and replacing the lack of substance with badly timed jokes trying to make what would have been a cool one issue fight into a two-part story, will we stick around for the conclusion of Barb Wire vs Wyvern Stormblüd? I certainly won’t.
Score: 1/5
Barb Wire #3 Writer: Chris Warner Penciller: Patrick Olliffe Inker: Tom Nguyen Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $3.99 Release Date: 9/2/15 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital