Huntress: Year One
March 22, 2009 | Trades
Huntress: Year One
Ivory Madison, Cliff Richards, Art Thibert, Norm Rapmund
DC Comics
$21.99/$17.99 US (Paperback)
*** (out of five)
Revenge is a dish best served in skin-tight leather.
Comics newcomer Ivory Madison, along with artists Cliff Richards, Art Thibert and Norm Rapmund, take Huntress back to basics and away from the slightly cheesecakey direction she’d drifted to as a core member of the all-female crime-fighting team, Birds of Prey, in this brutal reinterpretation of the character’s origin.
The midriff-baring costume with the miniskirt and thigh-high boots is nowhere to be seen in favour of sleek, high-collared purple-and-black leather gear in Year One, which casts Helena Bertinelli as a strong, independent, driven woman — torn between the need to avenge the brazen murders of her whole (Mafioso) family and the yearning to be with the man she’s fallen in love with, as well as the desire to empower women against their male oppressors.
These conflicted feelings lead Helena to life as a masked vigilante — one that brings her on a collision course with her family’s killer, the man behind it and, perhaps scariest of all, the Batman.
Overall, a pretty good debut for Madison, who infuses some nice don’t-take-crap-from-men messages into a nicely paced little action story.
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