Since I took over reviewing this series I’ve said numerous times that it has been a guilty pleasure for me to read it. However, this ending was bad. It was just a bad ending. In a lot of ways it reminded me of everything that Scott Snyder has written; great idea, interesting opening, but a total miss with the ending. What’s even worse is that it has a Mario Brother’s movie ending (That means that the minute it’s over someone rushes in and says, “It’s not over!”). The formula for each issue has been to end with some kind of crazy situation that’s about to go off with Tyler aka Enrique in the middle and seemingly no way out. The last issue saw Vera approaching the field as Enrique (that’s what I’m calling him from now on) was about to get shot with real bullets. She throws her sword and stops the duel by hitting the gun out of Nat’s hand. The Gun Club teacher begins talking to her and soon enough there’s an all-out war that starts with the teachers and moves to the students as Vera kicks all their asses. Vera runs into the principle that’s pretending to be her and they discuss their situation. Meanwhile, Enrique is hiding out in the Nurse’s office. She lets him know that she’s known he was a fraud since the beginning and tells him to use his brain like he’s done from the beginning and defeat Vera and crack the bigger mystery (that was basically introduced in the last issue) wide open!
I’m not going to spoil the ending for you, but it was bad. Some of it doesn’t even make sense like assassins talking to the press and revealing themselves to the public by doing so. What the hell world is this? I’m pretty sure that move would get you arrested instantly and I don’t buy the excuse of it being believable because there’s an assassin school. There were a lot of plot holes, but none bigger than the mystery we didn’t spend any time trying to figure out until the end… and then it was just solved in an instant. Technically it’s not even a mystery since your hand is held the entire time while the story is explained.
The story is also set up for a sequel which is strange since I thought more Bomb Queen was on the way as well, but we’ll see. I’d probably give the next series a chance, but if it fell into the same pattern instantly it wouldn’t take much for me to drop it. It’s not that the writing is bad or that the characters are bad in this issue, it’s that everything was just rushed to the finish line. The series spent all this time building up Enrique and his reason for being at the school, but then crammed everything of importance for the conclusion into this issue. This could have been the best the characters and dialog had ever been, but the rest of the story killed its chances.
I’m going to gloss over the art since it’s the same as it’s ever been. It’s definitely the most consistent I’ve seen Robinson’s pencil work, but I almost wish that it was colored the same way his Bomb Queen work is. I think the muted coloring lessens the impact of the art. Otherwise, it’s the same as it ever was.
Granted if I was rating the entire series it would receive a higher score, but the ending was poorly conceived and some of the more glaring mistakes in the series have finally lost their charm. It’s an interesting idea, but the story definitely needs some work. As it stands I would probably only recommend it as a trade or a cheap back issues if you haven’t read the other issues. If you’ve been following along as I have, then you may as well finish the series; just don’t expect much of anything.
Score: 2/5
Writer/Artist/Creator: Jimmie Robinson
Publisher: Image and Shadowline Comics
Price: $3.50
Release Date: 7/3/13