Review: Voodoo #1

I have to say that Voodoo is almost a complete unknown to me. I think she was in WildC.A.T.S. with Grifter, but really that’s where my previous knowledge of her begins and ends. So, I suppose I’m kind of the target audience. DC is certainly trying to branch out with concepts they haven’t used before (war, vampires, villain led titles, weird 70’s sci fi), but I really feel like the target audience here is 15 year old boys (though, considering that’s when I started reading comics, they may be on to something).

The main character is ‘Voodoo’ named because she’s the most popular stripper in a strip club
named Voodoo. Get it? I don’t know where the character’s name came from before, but I can’t imagine a much worse genesis for a superhero name than this. Did I mention the strip club? I don’t want to undersell that 90% of the issue takes place in a strip club that is only barely shying away from an 18+ rating.

Not your dad's comic book! (Well, hopefully)

Oh yeah, there’s a plot lurking around here somewhere. That’s totally what we’re all focused on

Basic plot. Voodoo’s a stripper, Evans and Fallon are some kind of ‘feds’ supposed to watch her but not interact. Evans looks like a bad Scott Summers and Fallon reminds me of Deena Pilgrim (but that may be the cop/fed thing). Evans, being the guy, disregards this because she’s a stripper, and hey, what guy doesn’t disregard orders for boobies? Evans leaves because she’s disgusted, or has scruples, or as an obvious plot device (or maybe all 3!).

Evans then manages to bribe a server to tell him Voodoo’s real name directly after she expressly tells him it’s against the rules to do so. I’d be more ok with this if Ron Marz didn’t spend the next few scenes overtly playing up the sisterhood, one for all, all for one, aspect between Voodoo & the other strippers. Marz uses this exchange to overtly show how Voodoo is different. She is stripping to ‘learn about people, especially men’. Oh, and this whole thing is set in the makeup room so the girls are mostly naked the whole time. Here’s a note kids: if your dialog and plotting is overly clichéd, just amp up the T&A, no one will notice. It’s not like I have a problem with the sexuality if it works with the story. Personally I thought the Catwoman comic fit with the character, so maybe the whole stripper thing fits with Voodoo, but it just reads as terribly uninteresting.

I won’t spoil the end, but I will say that the twist is enough to make me consider picking up the next issue. It does redeem a couple of characters to make me reconsider their initial one dimensional characterization. Whether or not I will is yet to be seen.

Sami Basri’s art & Jessica Kholinne’s colors are the obvious highlights of the issue. Clearly Basri is talented in drawing women in proactive clothing (something of a pre-req for superhero comics), but his style is unique. It plays like a mix of comic book and cartoon. The backgrounds look like they’re created completely separate and the characters added in after. I don’t think this would work for every comic but it does work wonderfully here. I think there’s a lot of potential for the fight scenes

I fight fast and dirty so’s I can take my time with my smokes. Punk.

Really, the art is just gorgeous and I really hope the series goes somewhere worth reading. Honestly though, I doubt it. Pretty much every character is just a bundle of cliché and Ron Marz doesn’t have the best track record in my opinion (see: Emerald Twilight).

Oh, there was one other highlight (caught by our intrepid editor The Masked Ndi)

I don’t know who this guy is but I’m betting…..foe?

By Kephus with 3 comments