By: Tom Taylor (story), Neil Googe (art), Jim Charalampidis (colors)
The Story: If you can make out over flaming shots, you’re too old for unicorn pajamas.
The Review: While it’s heartening to some degree that of the National Comics issues we’ve seen thus far, most of them (two out of three!) feature women, I find the storytelling choices made with them less inspiring. Looker’s world of high fashion clearly broadcasted that hers is clearly a title geared toward women. Unfortunately, Ian Edginton drew almost strictly on stereotype for the writing, ensuring Looker would be uninteresting to men and women both.
As for Rose (and Thorn), Taylor places her in that apparently inexhaustible setting for female tension, the high school clique scene. Perhaps the timing is just poor, since we just got a big dose of the Mean Girls plotline in the very recent Sword of Sorcery, but you just feel a bit burnt out the moment you step inside those acidic school halls.
Granted, Rose starts from a different place than Amethyst, having earned the respect of Skye and her Clueless-based pals, but I find it interesting that Rose does so basically by acting the, to use a euphemism, high-flying swinger (read: substance abusing, sexually indiscriminate sadist). This seems less a reflection on Rose than on Skye and pals, and while I’m generally not the type to make socio-political fuss over these kinds of things, I feel Taylor’s taking a few too many liberties with high school clichés in writing this issue.
Less cliché is Melinda, Rose’s sarcastic Asian friend (which, in my humble opinion, should become the next fictional archetype after the sassy black friend). I happen to like her dour commentary on their school life, despite the sitcomy quality of her witticisms. I also like that she brings out the edge in Rose, even without Thorn’s interference. A bit doubtful about Rose’s sudden friendliness with Skye, Melinda asks, “Did you have to sign some sort of binding document in the blood of the innocent?”
“Bizarre dark hazing ritual. They made me beat a nun to death with a puppy.”
As events proceed, don’t be surprised to find yourself connecting more to Rose’s friend than Rose herself. Taylor has a handle on Melinda’s voice and motivation that he lacks with his star. While her time in “the institution” should provide reason for sympathy, Taylor merely mentions the point and avoids it there afterward. Even more problematic is his bizarre choice of keeping mum Thorn’s purpose until the very end of the issue. Even then, he doesn’t really make it clear what she’s after and what all it has to do with her—their—dad. Without more, you have no reason to believe there’s a worthwhile story at the end of all this.
Given the limited contours of the story, taking place mainly in a mainly upper-middle-class world, you can’t really tell how well Googe would deal with more demanding or fantastic scenes. Still, he draws a fun-looking teen comic, particularly in the goony, exaggerated (oversized heads and eyes galore) figures populating the issue. Unfortunately, this tends to play against the ostensibly intense moments, making it difficult to take Thorn’s “atrocities” seriously.
Conclusion: Too weird for popular appeal and too lacking in edge or craft for cultists. A thoroughly forgettable affair, whose bright points can only benefit if put to work in a different project altogether.
Grade: C+
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – In my previous line of work, I’ve observed more teenagers firsthand than the average comic book reviewer, and I can almost guarantee that a comment like, “She should have stayed in the asylum,” would never have been uttered by anybody. Let’s not look down on young adults, please.