Ame-Comi Girls #20
Publisher: DC Comics
Digital First: comiXology
Written By: Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray
Art By: Horacio Domingues
Cover: Eduardo Francisco
A few weeks back with issue #18, DC Comics’ digital-first title Ame-Comi Girls hit a turning point where after an epic battle, the universe is reborn and re-set. Some fans expected this may just pave a new path for the Ame-Comi versions of Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and more to adventure down. Instead, last week in issue #19 we were re-introduced to the Flash. However, this was not the Flash who helped saved the day alongside our other kick-ass women in previous issues; this was an all-new, all zombie undead Black Flash! Black Flash was picked up by a version of Raven, named Red Raven, who actually is a vampire, and whisked away to help her save the day.
Intriguing to say the least, as this wasn’t what followers of the title the past few months were expecting.
Issue #20 pans the tale out, where Black Flash is introduced to some new “team mates” who make up the Teen Hellions, led by Raven. These include female
versions of Cyborg (Frankenstein-vibe), Starfire (space alien), Beast Grrl (shape shifter cursed by Gypsies like the Wolfman), and Tempest (female version of Aqualad, Creature from the Black Lagoon vibe). These teen female monsters have been brought together to fight Raven’s demon Dad, whom we all know as Trigon, and a battle of dead versus demon action ensues on these pages!
I think this new direction for Ame-Comi Girls is great! The title started off as a really strong mini-series that focused on our previous main women, and then rocked out for a bit with some great early issues. However, more recently the formula of making female versions of our heroes and watching them brawl to save the day has been entertaining but growing stale. The new story line with the Teen Hellions gives the digital-first comic a much needed injection of coolness by giving us a female monster league version of the Teen Titans, to duke it out and be amused by, something unexpected and even more unexpectedly executed well to the readers’ delight. Interestingly, where in the past other DC male-villains were made into females, they left Trigon as a male still in these pages, marking the first time in these pages a character’s gender has been un-flipped, yet still adding a fresh layer needed to the comic (Maybe not all the characters need their gender flipped to enjoy this title?).
I can say this, for a comic originally based off an anime-inspired toy line, starting with the last issue and continuing here, it’s come into its own thing by taking odd chances which are not just interesting choices, but entertaining and worth my continued one dollar a week to download it (versus waiting for a few chapters to be collected in print later on).
Rating: 4/5
Drew McCabe
drew@comicattack.net
