Since launching in 2006 I’ve shared kind of a sordid history with Bomb Queen. I tend to give the first issue of each new series a shot and so here we are again the first issue of the newest series. I enjoy Jimmie Robinson’s over the top violence; he’s one of those writers that are willing to pull the trigger on the most disturbing idea possible. He’ll blow the head off of a character when you least expect it,or have them pee themselves in front of a crowd; things that I find to ballsy to write about. But he never pulls the trigger when it comes to the art. Sure the characters talk a big game and their very graphic with their dialog but nothing is ever shown. Now I’m not saying it needs to be and there are other places to get that sort of thing if you’re looking for it. What I mean is that the dialog and story are so graphic that it seems out-of-place not to go to the next step of being an 18 and up series. The newest volume takes place after the Bomb Queen kills herself and destroys the internet, but I’m generalizing. A team of Hawks has been sent into the site that was once her great (?) city to find a man that’s raped and murdered a woman. Now the Hawks are a part of the Shadow Hawk organization, in the future Shadowhawk can be summoned by anyone “jacked in”the system. Also they don’t speak in complete sentences so it’s like reading a damn text message from someone who’s stuck with 140 characters. After a lot of plot explanation it’s finally revealed that an underground society that values books and basically how our society functioned before the internet, wants to release the Bomb Queen programming into the Singularity.
I’ll just say right now that I know the “text talk” and VH1 style pop ups were supposed to be annoying, but it was beyond even that. I stopped reading the bubbles after the first page, I commend any writer that has a world with enough depth to write such things but it’s boring as a reader. In general the story was just another Bomb Queen ditty. I was honestly more interested in the future of Shadowhawk than anything else, but I know that Bomb Queen will destroy it all. That’s what she does, she says she’s going to destroy it all and by the end of the series she has. She’s the bad guy that always wins and that’s pretty much the point,but after six volumes already it’s kind of tired.
I also have to say the art was not as good as I remember it from previous series. The first three series had a great look to it and was very distinct, but the latest volumes have become really stale. The covers of course are still amazingly detailed and just fun to look at which is more than I can say for the interior art.
I’ll venture a guess that this is a love it or hate it type of book for most. I find myself sitting in the middle; it’s not the best or the worst and basically doesn’t try to sway me one way or the other. You’d figure that after six volumes the series would grow or change, but I find myself repeating the same phrase since the second volume, “Yup, that’s Bomb Queen alright.”
Score: 3/5
Writer/Artist/Creator: Jimmie Robinson Publisher: Image and Shadowline Comics Price: $3.50