Deadshirt

Deadshirt Is Reading… is a weekly feature in which Deadshirt’s staff, contributing writers, and friends-of-the-site offer their thoughts on Big Two cape titles, creator-owned books, webcomics and more. 

Sarah Register is reading…

Bitch Planet #6

Written by Kelly Sue DeConnick

Art by Taki Soma

Cover Art by Valentine De Landro

Color by Kelly Fitzpatrick

Letters by Clayton Cowles

Image Comics

“It’s the sound of the world’s tiniest violin. And it’s the only song I’ll ever play for you.”

Bitch Planet rings in the new year with its second “special thirds” issue, this time featuring Megaton games speedster Meiko Maki, and the art of Taki Soma. Meiko’s story comes with a full page content warning, however—DeConnick and team approach the very real subject of sexual assault as they follow the young woman’s journey to the toughest prison orbiting earth. This installment also gives us some of the best insight into how women are treated outside of prison, as Meiko’s parents strive in secret to give their daughters a real education and a chance to enact change in their own lives, with devastating results.

By tackling not only sexual assault in prison, but also daily microaggressions toward women and even racist fetishism, this issue of Bitch Planet in particular emphasizes the importance of including further reading in essays and interviews at the back of the issue, as there is so much to unpack here. The sense is that the comic book itself force-feeds readers the hyper-dystopian ideas of gender while the accompanying writings translate the issue’s relevance to society at this very moment. An interview with Megumi Igarashi, internationally famous for creating a kayak in the image of her own vagina and subsequently being arrested for it, is especially powerful as she discusses her own labiaplasty surgery within the context of the male-dominated society of Japan labeling the vagina as obscene. Megumi’s real world experience, paired with Meiko’s encounter with a white male’s racist fantasy, paints a strong and complicated picture for Asian women’s gender and sexuality. And we’re just talking about one single comic book issue here.

Guest artist Taki Soma and colorist Kelly Fitzpatrick keep with the comic’s vintage, ’70s exploitative themes by utilizing Ben-Day dots and yellowing the white space in between panels. Soma often draws focus on men’s faces, filling an entire panel with a smiling male visage as he tells a panicked mother not be be hysterical or casually suggests sexual acts with adolescent girls. It’s effectively enraging within the context of the story, but she balances out the negative with powerful imagery of music, Meiko’s artistic outlet.

Kelly Sue DeConnick’s message at the end of this issue is one I came to as well after reading it: Bitch Planet doesn’t offer many answers. What it does offer, however, is a startling sense of reality found within a harsh dystopia, and a voice for so many.

Joe Stando is reading…

Contest of Champions #4

Written by Al Ewing

Art by Paco Medina (pencils), Juan Vlasco (inks) and David Curiel (colors)

Lettered by Joe Sabino

Marvel Comics

“…A man who, and I can’t stress this enough, goes into battle with a skateboard, Night Thrasher!!”

Contest of Champions is such a riot. The book’s weird parameters, like a video game-based premise without use of the marquee characters that draw people into the video game in the first place, would be an impediment in lesser hands. Here, Ewing turns them into a strength, focusing the story on fan-favorite characters who are either literally dead, or characters whose eras have passed. This week focuses on Daredevil’s mentor Stick, brought back from death by the Collector, but more accurately pulled in from the zeitgeist of his Netflix appearance. Ewing and Medina have Stick as acerbic as ever, and give him plenty of cool action to work with both on-panel and off (the beat with him defeating Sentry easily is the second funniest moment of the issue).

It’s a book whose premise boils down entirely to “alternate universe guys fighting,” like a satirical distillation of most Big Two events in the past few years. But Medina’s visual instincts for staging those fights, and the backstory and personality notes Ewing gives the characters, elevate it far beyond simple brawling. I’d put this book far above Avengers Vs. X-Men or Forever Evil, because everything here means something. A rematch between Ares and Sentry is a cool concept, but adding in that it’s an alternate Sentry who never met our Ares, one who even more openly mimics Superman but is also barely keeping it together, turns it into an actual story rather than a scene. I didn’t expect this book to top Ultimates and be neck and neck with New Avengers for my favorite Ewing ongoing, but it’s brisk, bright, and fun, with a solid balance of actual depth and comic book bombast and humor.

Thanks for reading about what we’re reading! We’ll be back next week with a slew of suggestions from across the comics spectrum. In the meantime, what are you reading? Tell us in the comments section, on Twitter or on our Facebook Page!