Ame-Comi Girls #3
Duela Dent
Despite high recommendation of Ame-Comi Girls, I found last month’s issue staring Batgirl to be quite yawn inducing. It seemed juvenile and regressive without any of the charm I had been led to expect. With this in mind, I go into this issue of Ame-Comi girls which features Duela Dent with very low expectations, yet hope blooms eternal. Does this issue surprise me or confirm my suspicion that this series is highly overrated?
In this issue, we get a glimpse of Duela Dent’s origin. We are then snapped back to the present where we witness Duela takes down Batgirl before dealing with trouble among her own ranks.
The Identity of a Dent
The last issue was extremely disappointing for many reasons, but one of those reasons was that it failed to provide a guiding framework for this version of Batgirl or the universe in general. I am delighted to say that this issue does much, much better in explaining its characters and universe.
For those of you who do not know, Duela Dent is a character who has appeared mostly in Teen Titans comics throughout the comic generations claiming to be the daughter of either Joker or Two-Face, and she has usually had some sort of connection to alternate timelines. I was curious how she would be portrayed in this issue, and it turns out, they give her a pretty thrilling origin.
At the danger of oversimplifying the tale, Duela is essentially the daughter of a mobster nicknamed Joker who was mortally wounded by Commissioner Gordon, but she was left with a great inheritance and the paternal advice to be an agent of chaos to the world. Duela took that advice, and dressed in a girly version of typical Joker fashion along with Dark Knight style mouth scars and became a super villain.
The first third of the story deals with this origin, and it is actually quite invigorating. I would not accuse it of excellence, but Dent’s origin works well in the context of this series, and placing it in a creepy and perhaps supernatural mansion really sold the delivery.
The Other Two-Thirds
Somewhat disappointingly, the story does not end with the origin tale. Rather, the story picks up where the last left off with Batgirl trapped on a spaceship with Duela Dent and her thugs. The story soon progresses to a battle between Duela and Catwoman, and then the heroes on Earth check in to move the story along.
The villains in this piece are fairly interesting, but the heroes are not cutting it for me. Batgirl and Steel seem overly serious and flat, and Robin seems like the token young, impatient character. Jessie Quick shows up as The Flash, and at least she seems to have a little personality.
Visuals
The visuals look good up close, but the penciler simply does not bother to give characters detailed facial expressions when they are not featured prominently in the panel. That leads to some awkward sketches wherein if you pay attention to characters in the background, you will notice they have no noses. That is some sloppy work.
On the flipside, the costumes and locales look amazing, but the artist does not really deserve much credit for the costumes since the costumes were designed for the figurines.
Conclusion 8/10
I’m torn on this one because I actually greatly enjoyed the first chapter, but the latter section was just typical. However, I think this was a pretty entertaining read overall, and it did make me curious to see what else this universe has to offer. Sadly, I think this is the last issue focused on the Bat Clan, so it will probably be the last I review.
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