By Keigen Rea — Bang! #3 isn’t a book I expected to think much of, but I’m surprised by how fun it is, yet it misses the mark with the main character’s portrayal. Largely, this is a fun gender-swapped Knight Rider homage. A car talks. Bad guys get beaten up. It’s very fun, which would be good enough to read, but it’s elevated by the craft on display. 

One of the first things I noticed was the smart way this issue is able to use captions. Opening the comic on the (presumed) protagonist, beaten, in pain, and narrating the experience is a fairly plain move. It works, and is used in film and television just as often as comics. It’s fine. What I really liked here, though is the way the team uses the captions as dialogue between our partner protagonists. It’s an efficient way to establish the link between the two, while also using that fundamental piece of comics in an interesting way. 

I also really love the prose pages that bookend the issue. They aren’t visually astounding, but the content helps to sell the rest of the story, and gives depth to the characters that isn’t given in the sequentials. They’re especially valuable in a series that is interesting a new character each issue. 

On the other hand, I don’t think the issue, or the prose backup, totally lands a core piece of this story: our protagonist’s disability. To a large degree it’s handled in a fine way. The reveal isn’t sold for shock value, and she’s at least as skilled as the main characters of the previous issues. Still, there’s room for improvement, especially the way the prose page talks about her disability and how she values herself with it. “Just a big brain in a broken body,” is the line that gets me. It just rings with a tinge of thoughtlessness that isn’t present elsewhere, and comes off as a bit of a cliche. I hope the future of the series includes some chance for a recovery for this, or at least gives us more depth to the character, so she doesn’t end up being just a wheelchair with a cool suit that lets her be a whole person. 

Overall: A fun issue of a fun series that’s held back by its handling of its protagonist’s disability. The future of the series may allow for some recovery, but it hurts much of my enjoyment of this particular comic. 7/10

REVIEW: BANG! #3

BANG! #3
Writer: Matt Kindt
Artist: Wilfredo Torres
Colorist: Nayoung Kim 
Letterer: Nate Piekosh
Publisher: Dark Horse
Price: $3.99
Dr. Queen, scientist extraordinaire, is on the cutting edge of technology, industry, and--with the help of her telepathically controlled super car--terrorist butt kicking. But when things go south in her attempt to take down a hacking supervillains diabolical plans, Queen finds that the lines between truth and fiction are blurred, and shes drafted into a war to save reality itself.
Release Date: September 2, 2020
Buy It Digitally: BANG! #3

Read more great comic book reviews!