By Mike Badilla
Dustin has been telling me since the beginning of my writing career here at CB to NOT GUSH about books, no matter how much I like them. So I can't tell you HOW AWESOME Tank Girl has been. How much I LOVE the art. I can't even tell you how UTTERLY ENTERTAINING this book is, considering some of the slop that comes across the comic stands. You'll just have to feel it through my reviews.
Let me start by saying that even the cover art by Brett Parson is great. I absolutely love the art in these books. It's almost got a retro feel, like it was drawn in what would have been a popular style 40 years ago. It's tough to explain, but if you check out the book you'll know what I mean. It doesn't look like other comics out now. The other cover, by that other artist, that shit was ugly and I'd never buy this book based on that cover. No sir.
We open with Jet Girl and Submarine Girl in bed together, SG fast asleep while JG looks at the ceiling, or at the reader if you're into the whole 'breaking the fourth wall' thing. JG leaves the bed and heads outside to find Tank Girl barbecuing. JG lights a huge joint off of the barbecue, pushes a button on a remote that makes her jet drop a smaller prop plane, climbs inside (joint hanging from her mouth), closes the cockpit and takes off. She lands at a pool hall, where it appears she does some betting and wins. She spends her winning on something (unclear what), then leaves in her plane.
She heads for a mansion, of which she has the key, and head inside. She makes herself a pop tart, heads for a chair in front of the fireplace, rolls another joint and discusses how much she loves the woman in the picture hanging above the mantle. We cut to JG floating in the fountain outside, still thinking about the love she has for this woman. She then heads back to camp, where she has beer and bbq with some of the others.
From there we cut to the night (although they colored the night scene in a way that made me think it was a flashback) and JG tells Boog and the rest that she spotted the army (the ones on the hunt for Boog and TG) about 200 miles away. They discuss flying over in JG's aircraft and dumping shit on them, but JG says that the army would have the technology to spot her jet from miles away. JG comes up with a plan, though...
The rest of the book goes off in a weird direction, as the past few issues have, and I'm not sure I totally understand what happened without a re-read. All I know is that the story is great, the art is awesome, and you should read this.
Score: 5/5
Tank Girl Gold #3
Writer(s): Alan Martin
Artist(s): Brett Parson
Publisher: Titan Comics