A really good story with some great art.
The review was originally posted to my review blog here.
My only prior experience with the character comes from the Birds of Prey live action series from a few years back, Gail Simone’s Birds of Prey: Death of Oracle, the Justice League television series, Paul Levitz’s World’s Finest, and her 3-episode special appearance in the new Arrow live-action series. So, a decent enough experience, but not nearly enough since this is my first proper Huntress comic. Having enjoyed Paul Levitz’s great work on World’s Finest, I was quite looking forward to this, and I have to say that Levitz has definitely met my expectations with this, and written a really interesting story.
The core element of the narrative is that Helena has gone to Italy to take down a crime lord who has been flooding Gotham of late with entire caches of weapons and more. The first issue does a great job of introducing the character, and laying down the beginnings of the meta-plot at work here as well. This is a mini-series that is full of action and drama in all the right amount for most part, and is a story that also has some real-world geopolitical references, such as the Arab Spring.
Paul Levitz treats Huntress as a proper character here, in that she has strong motivations for what she does, she has great dialogue that never comes across as cheesy, she sticks to her values and she never compromises with herself. She is a character you can respect and get along with. That’s what I wanted from the book going in, and that’s what I got. All good stuff! It was great to see her character evolve ever so slightly from her introduction and right on through to the ending of the arc, which, by the way, has a great climax. She’s also cheeky, quick to laugh, and utterly badass with that crossbow of hers. Icing on the cake!
Marcus To (pencils), John Dell (inks), and Andrew Dalhouse (colours) have done an excellent job with the interiors and even though sometimes Huntress has slightly different character designs in the book, especially when compared to the cover, I still enjoyed their work. Huntress/Helena Bertinelli is always shown in good, strong poses which always communicate her moods quite well, which is doubly great given some of the dross that other artists have been putting out for a while now. No over-sexualisation of the character here, not at all. The covers for the individual issues, done by Guillem March and Tomeu Morey, are also all excellent, except for the cover to #6 which just has the weirdest composition I’ve ever seen.
Overall, this was a really good story with some great art that I had a lot of fun reading. Given that this is a six-issue standalone book, it’s also a good introduction to the character. I never felt like I was missing anything. Definitely a recommendation!
