Gotham City Garage #8 – Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Writers; Ming Doyle, Colleen Doran, Eryk Donovan, Artists; Kelly Fitzpatrick, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 8/10
Corrina: Love This Kara (And Colleen Doran)
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
Ray: Gotham City Garage is one of the most up-and-down books in the DCU right now, with some issues being nothing more than action-packed post-apocalyptic chaos, and others being as compelling as the best issues of sister-in-spirit book Bombshells. Gotham City Garage #8 is one of the latter, as a fan favorite DC antihero makes her debut in this universe, and two popular characters get key spotlights. The opening segment is a spotlight for Kara Gordon and Wonder Woman, as the mysterious Amazon finally gets some development in this alternative universe. Her interactions with Supergirl are interesting, but the story doesn’t really get going until she shares her origin. The issue brings on a special guest artist for these two pages – legendary artist Colleen Doran, who tells the tragic story of GCG Themysrica in style. I’m excited to see more of this take on WW.
However, the issue really shines in the back half, as Wonder Woman takes Kara to a mysterious forest overseen by the only person you’d expect to run a mysterious forest – Poison Ivy. She works with a mysterious new character named Carver, who appears to be some sort of supernatural tattoo artist who can summon repressed memories and weave them into her tattoos. This segment is mainly Kara’s formal induction into the Gotham City Garage, but it also does a very clever Memento-like look at this version of Kara’s origin – working backwards as it takes her from a refugee fleeing Krypton, to a preteen just noticing that her world is starting to go wrong, to a carefree girl enjoying her life on another planet. Where this series has always shined is when it dials back the action a bit and explores these alternate versions of our favorite characters, and that makes this probably the best issue of the series.
Corrina: Last issue was well written but brutal, as one of our heroes basically executes a possible innocent or, at least, someone who had been abused in order to be turned into a weapon.
But the focus this issue shifts back to Kara and she cannot be anything but a sunny personality and so, despite Diana’s dark tale and grimness of the overall situation, this is an optimistic story of Kara accepting the truth of herself and wanting to be a hero.
It’s also a nice use of Ivy, the protector of one remaining forest left in the post-apocalyptic landscape.
I was ‘meh’ about the series in the beginning and now I look forward to it.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
