It’s a shame that Garth Ennis didn’t weave in the characters’ origin stories when they were relevant to the story.  After the excitement of having two Boys titles earlier this year, where the story was going super fast, Ennis has stuck us in the doldrums of origins for about half a year now.  Organically, The Female’s origin story is fairly interesting, but could have been trimmed into a 1/3rd to 1/2 an issue without losing any of the punch of this issue.  This issue, however feels the drag down of the last few origins, in that I really really want to get back to the story already.  NOTHING has happened since the end of Herogasm, and I felt the story was at a pretty pivotal point.

There’s an additional problem, aside form the screeching halt of the last few issues.  Ennis seems, in this issue in particular, to be off his game.  Yes, this is a shock value comic.  Yes, it is always filled with gore, perversion, and filthy, filthy language.  But, whereas his filthy filthy dialog usually comes across so smoothly that there’s almost a poetry to the word “cunt”, in this issue, every third “fucking turd” seems really forced.

I hope the next issue picks back up, or I may just start trade waiting it.