It’s a digital-first comic from DC that just wrapped, though the fact that it’s made it’s full run almost certainly means there’ll be a collected trade paperback out soon.
Basically it’s what you would get if Mad Max: Fury Road and the DC universe were both strapped to superbikes and driven into one another at top speed, and the stellar writing team of Kelly and Lanzing picked the shinest bits out of the wreckage to make a comic out of.
Our basic set-up is that about twenty-thirty years after an unspecific apocolypse known only at the WorldBurn (which a few humans survived, thanks to Mr Miracle’s intervention) the Western USA is an inhospitable desert known as the Freescape, populated by outlaw biker gangs, rebel journalists and sentient canyons. The one place that looks like society as we’d recognise it is the Garden – a city encased inside a massive energy dome, built on the ruins of Gotham and ruled over by Lex Luthor, who enforces his will with the help of mind-controlling brain implants known as ride-alongs.
Kara Gordan is the daughter of Jim Gordon and younger sister of Barbara. She’s pretty happy with her life in the Garden until the night it all goes wrong and she’s forced to flee to the Freescape, where she’s exposed to yellow sun radiation for the first time. She knows that her newly-discovered super-powers mean that she isn’t human, but she doesn’t know what she might be instead and she has no idea of the extent of her powers. Fortunately for her, the women of the Gotham City Garage (bike repair shop, speakeasy and beacon of hope for the Freescape) pick her up and take her under their collective wing.
(That’s Big Barda, who leads the GCG’s resident gang, while Steel aka Natasha Irons runs the Garage itself).
The story is everything you could want from a superhero x post-apocalypse sci-fi x coming of age story mash-up, the characters are great, the writing is great, the representation could be better in terms of race but it’s clear the writers are trying their best with what the DCU has to offer and it’s basically an all-female cast… Honestly the only criticism I have is that some of the guest artists aren’t amazing, but it’s never unreadable and the character designs are magnificent. To give you an idea, this is the obligatory sexy Harley tie-in pin-up statue they released:
As anyone who’s been in a comic-book/nerd-ephemera store lately will tell you, Harley getting that many clothes and a non-suggestive pose in a statue is basically unheard of. Even fully-dressed animated series Harley is always sticking her arse in the air.
Apart from Catwoman’s rather questionable costume choices, a few bared mid-riffs is the closest to fanservice the book ever gets, and I have no idea why DC is paying for something that’s so far outside their wheelhouse, but it’s a fucking delight and everyone should be reading it!
flyingtank 