Phantom Lady #4 – Review

By: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray (story), Cat Staggs (pencils), Tom Derenick (inks), Jason Wright (colors)

The Story: How do superheroes vent their sexual frustration?  By taking down mob bosses.

The Review: On the second day of my Property class, my professor told me that once we got more familiarity with the law, we’ll start seeing pop-up balloons, visible only to us, appear everywhere we go.  We’ll see a stalled car preventing someone from backing out of their parking space and a balloon will pop up: “False Imprisonment?”  A homeless person will squat on an empty lot: “Adverse Possession?”  That kind of thing.

I had one of those pop-up balloons reading this issue.  When Jen suggests that instead of risking lives (theirs and those of others) by amateurish vigilantism, they simply sneak into the Benders’ HQ and gather incriminating evidence, Dane protests, “None of that stuff would be admissible in court.”  Actually, it would, I believe (and if I’m wrong, that bodes ill for my prospects at passing my Criminal Procedure final today).  As far as I know, the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure would not apply to a private citizen, rather than a government official, who gathers incriminating evidence against a person.  But then, would you consider Dane and Jen as agents of the government?

Phantom Lady #3 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (story), Cat Staggs (pencils), Tom Derenick (inks), Jason Wright (colors)

The Story: They may be fighting zombies, but at least they’re doing it on a yacht.

The Review: For the Walking Dead fans, what I’m about to say is akin to blasphemy, but I’m getting pretty sick of zombies or any of their facsimiles.  I don’t know what has suddenly propelled them into the popular zeitgeist, but whether they’re your traditional zombies in The Walking Dead or The New Deadwardians, or Black Lanterns and Third Army drones in Green Lantern, watching mindless, unkillable beings infect others has gotten quite tiresome.

Which is why the appearance of zombies in this issue, even temporary ones, drew a groan from me.  Funerella (still a horrible name) already has plenty of formidable powers to her credit, including accelerated molecular degradation and, apparently, imperviousness to being killed.  The ability to make lumbering undead from scratch just seems like a cheap way to generate distractions for Dane and Jen.  The fact that the zombies return to normal upon some unspecified circumstance makes you look at our heroes’ killing them in a more questionable light.

Phantom Lady #2 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (story), Cat Staggs (pencils), Tom Derenick (inks), Jason Wright (colors)

The Story: Doll Man teaches Phantom Lady that size really doesn’t matter—sometimes.

The Review: Anyone who’s followed this blog long enough knows I have developed certain prejudices—let’s not call them grudges—against certain writers and artists.  Some of them may be more deserved than others, but generally, I feel I make a good case for my hang-ups.  At times, though, I find it hard to reconcile my dislike for the Bedards and Levitzes of the world while still following along with the Grays and Palmiottis.

If I had to explain myself, I’d say one thing Gray-Palmiotti have over the creators I’ve dismissed is a source of ideas that still seems as if it has some juice left.  I’m not so sure that applies to the series at hand, however.  Without the superpowers, the story we have basically reduces down to your usual personal vendetta against the evil collective.

Phantom Lady #1 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (story), Cat Staggs (pencils), Tom Derenick (inks), Jason Wright (colors)

The Story: Now you see her, now you don’t.

The Review: Against all odds, the Freedom Fighters keep coming back to the DCU, no matter how many times you might believe the door has shut on their antiquated patriotism.  They do have a certain campiness I find endearing, and Gray-Palmiotti play up to that quality in a big way.  Maybe that’s why they’ve been at the head of each Freedom Fighters revival, though so far, none has resulted in the big comeback the team would hope for.

If there’s any Fighter who can strike it big on her own, it will have to be Phantom Lady.  True, she’s earned most of her popularity as a sex bomb, but that doesn’t take away the fact that she’s the most recognizable of all her teammates.  Gray-Palmiotti, perhaps taking the relaunched DC a little too much like a blank slate, give her a complete makeover in this mini, much as they did with the Ray some months earlier, and the results are almost nearly as uneven.