Rat Queens #4 – Review

by Kurtis J. Wiebe (Writer), Roc Upchruch (Artist)

The Story: With the mystery of who is trying to kill the mercenary groups solved, I suppose it is about time for a horde or orcs to attack the town.

The Review: Diversity is awesome. While comics are generally associated, in a rather general manner, with super heroes, most aficionados do know that in this day and age, we are lucky to have comics covering close to every genre. Horror, western, supernatural, mystery and a plethora of others are all represented, perhaps not in an equal manner, but are available on the market nonetheless.

Having a certain fondness of fantasy, with all the tropes connected with the genre (elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, magic and what-have-you), it’s always nice to see a title delve in what readers know unapologetically. Still, any title needs its own identity, which is why it’s just so refreshing to see a title like Rat Queens on the stand. Full of humor, flawed leads and a willingness to play with the tropes without any restraints, it is a title that is unabashedly fun to read.

Part of this, of course, is due to the characters themselves, with each of them possessing a distinct voice without resorting too much into stereotypes. While Betty may seem like an airhead, she is much more capable than she seems to be, like every others. While Wiebe may seems to purposefully use archetypes of characters and humorous types, there is always a bit more than what is on the surface, with a lot of characters getting rather easy to like, even some of the secondary characters like Braga or Sawyer gets infinitely more interesting in this issue, which bodes well for the future of this series.

The humor is certainly another factor at work here, with a certain dedication to it that is rather amusing to see. The general display of hyper-violence and the normalization of its effects by the characters, the profanity, the general silliness and multiple other factors are at work here to render this book immensely entertaining. Put in some rather memorable one-liners in there and it results in a fun book indeed.