God damn you JMS!!

Here I was, expecting a nice story about three women in the DCU. Nothing more. Instead you tore my heart and stomped on it several dozen times!

Before we get to the ending of this comic I have to say this was a brilliant read all the way through. JMS is showing just why he is perfect with this series. He took, an otherwise, strange mix of characters and made an amazing story in this. If this was just Zatanna, Wonder Woman, and Batgirl just having a girls night out; this is still a great comic. JMS shows how versitle of a writer he is. He writes believable women and interactions, especially with how they interact with the men. There is also a great light hearted tone through out this thing. Some good jokes in here (the obvious Star Wars reference), and again he makes all three women mesh together well.

Then we get to the last….oh six pages of this thing. That’s when JMS shows us his true colors. He shows how much of an evil bastard he can be. I learned a long time ago that whenever comedy is involved in any medium, tragedy is sure to follow. That’s basically what happened here, but the tradegy in this hit HARD. I want to not spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it yet. But….let’s say this involves a certain moment in Batgirl’s history and it is executed perfectly. Won’t say any more but by the time it all became clear to me, I literally rushed to my bookshelf to see if what I was reading was accurate.

Cliff Chiang takes over for art and if I have to say if Jesus Saiz couldn’t do this series all the time….Chiang is a good replacement. It actually does look like a Saiz issue because the same colorist (Trish Mulvihill) does her magic to just make everything stand out. Chiang is really good at drawing beautiful women. Not in any distasteful or cheesecakey way; he just is good at beautiful women. He’s also great at doing wardrobe because what the three women wear, and anyone else, looks realistic and not stylized. Back to the shocking ending, again without spoilers, this is where Chiang shows why he is a great artist. Mimicking the style of that particular artist, but making look like his own. He treats the work respectively and by the time we get to the final page of this….It’s just gold.

This issue, among all the others, show why this has to be DC’s best title. Batman and Robin has had problems, Green Lantern has had some iffy issues. This series however, has never had a bad issue in sight once JMS took over. He shows why he is a great writer by pulling the reader in and just destroying their emotions in the process. No matter what big assignment JMS will get in the future in DC (and he’s getting a lot!) I hope he sticks with this series. Some of his best work, including this issue, is in here right now.