Ame-Comi - Duela Dent #1-3

Loving this Duela Dent, her outfit and her text no matter how uninspiring the other issues are.
So that's something. Now finally, some backstory so we know why we should give a rats... unlike the Joker's Daughter of the New52.

Everything on this cover looks pretty awesome but again... what the hell is going on with Harley's hat? Does the artist know they're not actually like bunny ears or do they have some sort of power in this universe?

No one will explain anything!

Part I

So starting off with a description of her house - which reminds me of a Series of Unfortunate Events and her outfits, which make me think of Alice in Wonderland we have the tale of little Duela.
A precocious child on the edge of society, running free across the waste dumps...

Yes, she actually does that and barefoot to boot. Turns out the house is condemned, which is a twist I totally did not see coming. /Sarcasm. Wait, this is either a different day or she stopped in a room I did not see to put on stockings and maybe shoes? A wise move, considering there are like syringes and broken glass shards outside your front door.

As it happens, the home is heritage listed as a Gotham landmark and that's why it's still standing. Barely. But whatever, it's a cool home for a crook dad and his little scamp of a girl to hang out.

Actually seems like a decent dude. One day while playing hide and seek, young Duela gets into the attic where she's attacked by bats. You thought Bruce Wayne had it bad? These winged rats tore chunks out of her face, and caused her hair to have to be cut off (because there were so many bat corpses in there - terrifying) and of course, being the recipient of rabies shots from Dr. Hugo Strange.

This culminates in Jack dying Duela's hair green to cheer her up. Shock twist - Jack shot Commissioner Gordon through the spine and paralysed him instead of Barbara in this universe. At least this means they didn't get to see the crappy Killing Joke movie then as some sick consolation?

Despite being shot himself somewhere in town surrounded by cops, Jack makes it back to his home in time to die in his daughter's arms... while possibly giving the best advice ever from a super villain point of view.



Becoming an agent of chaos..grown up Duela then manages to blow up banks and emergency services along with mafia safe houses and drug shipments. This pitted the criminals and the law against each other more because despite a maniac walking around in a steampunk corset, no one knew the culprit was Duela.

Seeing Batgirl in action made Duela want to kill her... after all bats gave her the Glasgow Smile and then they took all the good gadgetry too!

Hence hanging out with a woodland elf, a clown and two cat people competing for most obvious feline pose and the last speech bubble available.

Part II

Remember how I was just saying how cool Part I was? Well, Part II has gone down the make-fun-of-women path again.

First we get a monologue about what Duela calls 'Team Estrogen.' Then she tells her group that she's not here to have tea parties, take votes or discuss feelings. Get it? She's not like most women? When she needs to show Catwoman her place in the group, she taunts her about 'feeling crampy and needing chocolate.'

You know, I get the 'jokes' and all but there's something decidedly not funny about a bunch of guys sitting down and writing this dialogue for their nearly all female cast to play out and then this stuff got past the editors and no-one thought 'oh wait, this is kinda lame at best, and not pro-women at worst. LET'S PRINT IT!'

Anyway, Batgirl escapes, meets Duela and her Hormone filled dream team while Duela bitches about them internally. Poison Ivy looks a lot more like Red Sonja but with cyber goth aspirations.

Like this and this got together and made a CyberSonIvy. Eh, it's still a lot better than the hideous Swamp like Thing we got in the Batgirl stories.

Still does not explain why she now has elf ears.

Are they going for Mad Harriet's style?









Catwoman also takes the time to rag on Harley Quinn but for a bit of variety they have her go the route of calling her retarded which is very un-Pc and very weird seeing as how Catwoman took it personally when she thought Harley was  homophobic.. but she's cool with bashing people of a different mental capacity?

Pro-tip - if you're given a lecture about treating people fairly from your super villain boss... you may want to look into alternate employment. 

Meanwhile the wonder twins call the Flash in for reinforcements. There's more talk about hair being mussed up and hating maths... hard pressed to say if this is more bad stereotyping or just that character. The fact that Flash messes up people's hair when she runs past might not be anything more than the truth.

Speaking of hair though, how awesome is Jesse's hair with the lightning bolt? Seriously, this figure was the only one I wanted apart from Harley Quinn I & II and Wonder Woman II. But the Halloween version of course! Look how sweet that skull faced angel is! 

Part III

Back on the invisible space ship hovering in mid air.. boy, you know these comics aren't exactly long or over complicated but I feel like the narration or the characters feel obligated to point out this unidentified flying overbearing nonsense like every five seconds. Like damn, I get it! They're on a friggin' spaceship! There have been four scenes in this series, max! One's Barbara's house, one's Steel's house, one's the stupid park and one is AN ALIEN SPACESHIP. What can I even get this confused with??

Oh yay, they found a way to sex up Brainiac now it's got tits. 

Or is it exposition bot, who's now blathering on about some scheme to end the world in order to let it rebuilt itself. 

Oh, and apparently Brainy-boobs created the world anyway. 

Righty-o then. 

Fresh after calling Harley slow, Catwoman decides it's best that she physically assault her as well. 

Damn, those faces though.. clearly the budget didn't go on the art as much as it did on Harley's hat. 

Needing no further prompting, Brainy-boobs proceeds to yammer on for the next two hours which we know because this is when Catwoman breaks Batgirl out and tells us that Cheetah bailed an hour before this out of sheer boredom. 

The ship immediately sends out out defence personnel the moment the escape pods area is breached but... are these aliens or humans or robots? Either way there is a lot more exposed abdomen and chest areas than any defence squad should show. Heck, one even seems to have a coin slot in her stomach.  

Batgirl sends Catwoman away to find Robin. Catwoman makes a big deal about trust, but honestly this is so stupid. Where is she going to find Robin anyway and this is going to lead into another fight scene because obviously Robin won't trust Catwoman. What a stupid plan. 

Anyway, Duela curses cat villains, and Brainy-boobs sends more clone-robot-tummy flashin'-alien-things. No idea what Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are doing. 

Wotta Comedian!

Duela: My crew back then was just a bunch of cosplay fetishists with minor criminal aspirations.. not that there's anything wrong with that.

Duela: I surmise that under the suit there's a geeky outsider with red hair that was picked on a lot in school.

Duela: Some people call me a space cowboy...okay, nobody calls me that. 

Duela: This is the last time I work with cat-themed villains.

The Short End of the Jester Schtick

Alright well uncharacteristically great start to this comic to be let down by the overall plot. I can't believe I actually wanted to keep reading about a childhood sob story instead of the actual story! 

Plus, Duela had all the best lines. 

Batgirl was all ha-ha I have a plan to get out of here easily you villains! Then gets her arse handed to her, gets trapped again and just mopes for the next two hours. Robin and Flash are just filler, while Steel is a flip-floppy jerk. 

Naturally, this all ties into the next volume of Power Girl but how you'd know that if the book didn't tell you is beyond me. It seems like the people who decided to make a comic about things based on anime inspired designs have never actually read manga. 

I actually prefer manga to comics because manga (generally speaking) has more depth, more effort, a story, character designs and personalities that capture your interest and a good dose of humour. 

If you hadn't read any manga like Ranma 1/2 or anything by Rumiko Takahashi, Full Metal Achemist, Battle Angel Alita, Naruto, Fruits Basket, Sgt Frog, Othello, Peach Girl and so on..

If you had just been given this comic and told it was "like manga" you'd probably have a lot lower standard for anything Japanese. And that sucks.