By: Ron Marz (writer), Sami Basri (artist), Jessica Kholinne (colorist)
The Story: She literally knows what dirty thoughts you’re thinking.
The Review: Women in comics are a hot topic lately, and with this DC relaunch, the focus has landed on their fictional portrayals. Last week, both Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws came under fire for putting their female stars into over-sexualized scenes (Catwoman’s last panel alone would have made you blush even in a men’s locker room). With all the teasers showing its stripper-heavy first issue, Voodoo seemed well on its way to winning the prize for anti-feminism.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let me just say: strippers are a fact of life. You may see them as a moral travesty of varying degrees, but you can’t deny their existence, and it would be very false for fiction to do otherwise. The important thing in writing them, just like writing any other class or type of people, is to make sure they don’t become mere instruments in the story, brought in just for the sake of having them. Like anything else, if you write them well, they’re fair game.
And Marz writes them well. Yes, you get plenty of bare skin and erotic positions in the first few pages, but as the issue moves along, he makes it clear all that stuff is mere gloss, and underneath is a living, breathing plot with conflict and tension that has absolutely nothing to do with an exploitive industry. And anyway, by the end, the strip club setting becomes a non-issue; it is only one, temporary stop on this storyline’s train track.
Most crucially, these scantily-clad ladies eventually strip away their sexual glamour and become real women, for whom their exhibitionism is just part of their job’s grind. This becomes clear when one of them—Abby; she has a name—asks the others, “My sitter for tomorrow just cancelled. Can anybody watch Cody during my shift?” The moment she mentions her son by name, you know immediately the intimacy these women share.
From that point on, the women cease to be “the strippers” and become true characters. One excuses herself, saying she has class. Another berates Priscilla, the “real” name of our titular protagonist, for not stepping up to the plate and helping out when her co-workers are in a bind. They all have their personal for being here, but for Pris, we soon learn in dramatic fashion that with her limited experience of the world, a stripper was possibly the only job she qualified for.
Even if you don’t buy into any of this, you can still look to agent Jessi Fallon for your strong woman figure. Annoyed by partner Tyler Evans’ unsavory interest in their current target, she vents her feelings by dispatching a gang of upstart fratboys without losing her cigarette. But whatever her frustrations, she and Tyler have a mission to follow Voodoo wherever she goes. As the issue’s climax (not that kind, sickos) shows, this series is no excuse for camp, but a genuine sci-fi thriller with a real conspiracy on its hands.
Basri draws beautiful women, but prevents them from looking as if they all came out of some standard hottie mold. Some, like Abby, show clear but concealed signs of age and wear; others look youthful and strangely innocent. Beyond that, Basri’s POV choices really drive the tension and pacing of the story, quickly turning from sultry to horrifying, though Kholinne’s dim, lava-lamp palette accented with rich lighting deserves equal credit for that.
Conclusion: In almost any other context, the content of this issue would be grossly and blatantly exploitive, but it all serves a natural purpose in the function of the story. It’s not clear which direction this title will take, but it’s clear misogyny is not the endgame here.
Grade: B-
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – I would find it hilarious to know what kind of “research” Basri had to do to figure out all of Voodoo’s many, imaginative poses.
Grade
Conclusion