The Gotham City Sirens are one of those ideas that was always good, but works much better in the modern day than it did when it first dropped. DC made the perfect choice when they brought the group back last year in getting Leah Williams to write the book. Williams showed that she could do an all-girl team with X-Terminators, a Krakoa Era X-book that caused something of a minor sensation, and bringing her in to write a group like that for DC, especially with on-again, off-again lovers Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, was inspired. Williams is back for more Gotham City Sirens fun with Golden City Sirens: Unfit for Orbit #1, and her and artist Haining do a fantastic job right from the start.
The Gotham City Sirens are an interesting concept, and one that is made for Williams’s type of madness. Williams excels at books with all-female casts, because she captures that interplay between women that a male writer just doesn’t understand. Her women feel natural, and that’s one of the strengths of Unfit for Orbit. This first issue is classic heist comics stuff, with Catwoman “building the team” by recruiting an in the shower Harley Quinn, who calls Poison Ivy while she’s mid-coitus with her assistant Janet. The whole opening sequence is basically the first hour or an Ocean’s movie, but with three ex-supervillains who worked together, and much funnier. Williams’s joke timing is impeccable, and while it can be tempting to overstuff any Harley scene with humor, Williams finds the right balance. In fact, right from the beginning, she lays out who each character is with the dialogue, so if for some reason you’ve never read about these three, you get what each of their characters is.
Look, I’m going to be frank with you — if you didn’t like X-Terminators, you’re probably not going to like this book. While X-Terminators was way more sexual than this comic, to its detriment in my opinion, it feels like Williams found the right balance with the humor so it isn’t all just sex jokes. Williams was an inspired choice for rebooting the Gotham City Sirens, and this issue shows that she’s overcome some of her worse tendencies to give readers a nicely paced opening. It’s funny, there’s tension, and the reveal of the big bad is perfect. This isn’t usually the type of book I like, but the big bad of the whole thing has me very interested in seeing just how the Sirens will get through this one.
Haining’s manga-influenced pencils are gorgeous throughout the book. I loved her page layouts for the first few pages, especially when Harley and Catwoman get into a little mistaken identity fight. The rest of the book’s layouts are more traditional, which works for the story as it goes. Haining understands how to use the panel structure of a page for visual storytelling, and establishes a great flow throughout the issue.
Her pages are deliciously detailed, and things never get sketchy. As I was reading the issue, I thought to myself that this is just colored manga art (shout out to colorist Ivan Plascencia, whose colors fit the art beautifully), and that’s exactly what it is. The best manga art is ridiculously detailed, the black and white art not able to use color to hide imperfections. Haining’s art has that exact kind of feel. This is a huge compliment. Here’s another compliment — you could flip through this book and not read any of the words and still understand the story. Haining is a master, and I can’t wait to see more of her detailed, fluid art on this book.
Gotham City Sirens: Unfit for Orbit #1 is a fun ride from start to finish. Williams is definitely in her element here, but you can see how she’s grown as a writer since X-Terminators. This is a funny, entertaining comic, and Williams doesn’t just fall back on sex humor on every page like she did in X-Terminators. Haining’s art is perfect throughout this book; her visual storytelling abilities are a huge part of why this comic works so well. I honestly didn’t think I’d enjoy this comic as much as I did, but it won me over.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Gotham City Sirens: Unfit for Orbit #1 is on sale now
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