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Bomb Queen Presents: All Girl Special #1 – Review

Who can be more politically incorrect than Bomb Queen?  But this issue is incorrect in more than just the political way.  The usual elements of Bomb Queen - nudity, violence and the Queen B herself - are noticeably scarce in this issue.  The story tries to become more respectable but is hard to take seriously with Bomb Queen's motley crew, composed of super villains Miss Demeanor and Tits (guess what her power is).      
After picking off five world leaders, Bomb Queen sets her sights on the Queen of England.  The President of the United States, Sarah Palin, instructs a team of superheroes to protect the Queen and her clone from Bomb Queen and her henchwomen.     Bomb Queen Presents: All Girl Special written and drawn by Jimmie RobinsonThis issue seems different from other issues of Bomb Queen.  This was my first time reading Bomb Queen and the excessive nudity and blood shed that I heard about are not in this issue a lot.  The most blood that was shed was on the cover, which of course doesn't happen in the comic.  Writer Jimmie Robinson put the action towards the end and unfortunately the final showdown between our heroines and Bomb Queen was not the highlight of the two battles featured in this issue.  Bomb Queen explained our heroines' entire strategy to them, demonstrating her intelligence but also making the anticipated battle with her and the heroines feel like a cop out.  The battle between Dee Rail, Fetish, Miss Demeanor and Tits had a lot more action going on.  Fetish's power to transport items like knives and guns to use whenever she wishes was a unique and useful power, which seemed to highlight how strange Dee Rail's powers were.  She is powered by rail ways and can not only ride them, but sense anything that happened on them.  The usefulness and flaws of her unique abilities are highlighted in this issue and are not as ridiculous as they may seem until you've read the issue.  The rest of our heroines have a range of emotions distinguishing them from one another that are explored more than their powers are, and their strikingly different looks making them contrast against each other well.  Blacklight looks like Mystique (first Doctor Who, now Bomb Queen?), Rebound looks like a young Pink – with the attitude too – and Tempest, the black sheep, appears to be a bit of a Jesus freak.  At least that's how Rebound views her.  All these characters were enjoyable, Fetish and Dee Rail because of their powers and Blacklight, Rebound and Tempest because of their sisterly interactions with each other.  The roster of characters is big but none of the heroines feel forgettable, especially the villain Tits, but for all the wrong reasons.  Her powers are a distasteful display of nudity and trying to throw in comedy that just does not work with the rest of the story, which other than the political slanders was fairly tame.  One character surprisingly absent and who made little impact, however, was the character in the very title.      Bomb Queen is mentioned throughout the comic, but is not even given a speech bubble until towards the end of the comic.  Her personality is spot on, with her foul language and stick-it-to-everyone attitude shining through quickly even with her lack of dialogue.  The way the dialogue is in the issue was surprisingly a problem.  Sometimes, dialogue or thoughts are not given speech bubbles and are instead put overtop of characters heads.  This would work if these were just their thoughts, but this technique is used for both the dialogue and thoughts, making it slightly confusing when trying to figure out if someone is talking or thinking. Another oddity of the issue is the lack of action and huge amounts of plot development.  This one-shot, like Bomb Queen vs Hack/Slash #1, is a very important part of the Bomb Queen Saga and a must read for fans wanting to know important new elements added to the story.  More than half of the issue is dedicated to moving the story forward, leaving little room for action and only one quick nudey scene that, as usual, had no real need to be there.  The story was easy to understand with only a split second of confusion towards the end that was quickly cleared up by some explanation back at the White House, which was also another interesting element of this issue – the use of political elements.  Bomb Queen Presents: All Girl Special #1 page with Blacklight, Rebound, Tempest, Dee Rail and FetishRight away the comic opens with a quote from Buddha and is a sign that if you are easily offended, turn back now.  If you are not a huge fan of Sarah Palin, this issue seems to cater to that by making her a bit of a dingbat.  One of the funniest panels in the comic is when she tries to make a political speech and gets mixed reactions from her staff. Even Jimmie Robinson's character design of Palin makes her seem off, with him giving her slightly bucked teeth.  Not knowing enough about Palin to be offended by her misrepresentation (or representation), her character here was funny to me and took away some of the dragging sense establishing the story would have had, despite her not very flattering representation. The rest of the art, all coming from the writer, is great.  All of the heroines and villains costumes are fun and the bright colors from Paul Little really made the costumes pop.  The only neglect in Robinson's artwork is the setting.  Backgrounds are rarely given any detail, but some background scenes with little color helped make the characters stand-out in the panel and should have been used more often to highlight the vast array of bizarre and fun characters. Going into this comic, don't take anything seriously.  Realism has left the building when you get to the first page and you don't want it to return.  All important characters have distinct personalities and bizarre powers and costumes that make them stand-out in the crowded superhero field.  Not because of a cool or powerful reason, but because of their out-there nature.  Newcomers to Bomb Queen are welcome here and followers of the series will need to pick this up to see the important developments in the story.  It's not a masterpiece, but Bomb Queen doesn't want to be – she just wants to entertain and dares to be different.  And take over the world, but what villain doesn't?  For more about this issue of Bomb Queen, read our news story. And for more political no-nos from Bomb Queen, check out our other review of Bomb Queen Vol.6 #4
Rating
7.9

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About / Bio
An all-around nerdette, I’m a comic book connoisseur, horror aficionado, video game addict, anime enthusiast and an aspiring novelist/comic book writer. I am the head of the comic book department and the editor-in-chief of Entertainment Fuse. I also write and edit articles for Comic Frontline. I am also an intern at Action Lab Entertainment, a comic book publisher at which I edit comic book scripts, help work on images in solicitations and help with other comic book related project. My own personal website is comicmaven.com.

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