Despite being one of the 1980s signature
toy properties (and perhaps the most tied to the decade thanks to its lovely
choices in fashion) Jem & The Holograms never had any kind of comic book
presence until March last year, this is almost
As I came too late for the toy line my only real exposure to the franchise then was re-runs and VHS releases of the cartoon show but I’ve had this thing for Jem & The Holograms since I was small, though it was never as strong a thing as my thing for the Care Bears it was one of the various girls toys/shows that I was interested in that infuriated my maternal grandfather but it did mean that my mother didn’t even think about batting an eyelid when I wanted her to buy me the first Jem trade paperback (or whatever pretentious name we’re expected to use for them now – graphic picto-fic compilations or some shit) during our previously mentioned bonding/shopping Christmas trip. I think I’ve read the series about 10 times through now so obviously I like it, I’m sure I’m going to moan about things because I always do and I think we’ll look at the actual books so are you sitting comfortably? then I’ll begin:
Showtime Part 1 (Jem & The Holograms issue 1)
Quick
Summary: while at a professional video shoot they’ve cancelled on two times
already Jerrica Benton literally chokes from stage fright and runs out the
studio where they’re trying to record their entry for the Misfits Vs
competition – which closes tomorrow. Kimber exposits to her and tells her that
if they fail to make the competition she’s had enough and leaving, this leaves
to an argument with the other two holograms – Shana and Aja – that Jerrica
overhears, pushing her to run home. While playing and singing the storm knocks
the powers out and um… Synergy appears, a hologram and ultimate audio-visual
synthesiser, the storm having booted her up. She allows Jerrica access to her
late father’s safe and she finds earrings that can project holograms and only
Aja has anything resembling a normal reaction to their life becoming a
sci-fi/superhero origin story as the find their father’s secret lair. Jerrica
knows exactly what to do with the technology – make the world a better place?
Fight crime? Fuck that, make herself look like a pink haired amazon to negate
her stage fright and enter the competition.
The art in this issue is gorgeous, Sophie
Campbell isn’t quite as details as usual but her style is still one of the most
visually pleasing things in comics, the colours (by an M Victoria Robado)
compliment them perfectly – somehow looking both flat and giving depth, it’s
weird but it’s exactly the sort of colouring the book and Campbell’s art should
have. The writing’s…not so great, the dialogue’s mostly ok, Kimber’s massive
exposition dump early on doesn’t feel too forced at all, in fact it feels
pretty much exactly like someone reminding someone else of everything that’s
happened as a way to explaining why they’ve had enough, only jaded old bastards
like me see through it for what it is – an exposition dump. The following fight
is a little stilted, I get what Kelly Thompson is going for, that one problem
causes an argument about something unrelated but it still really about (I think
Thompson may have sisters, or multiple daughters/nieces) but I just felt it
didn’t’ flow that great until Shana got involved, I know that’s vague, but then
so’s the problem. The main writing issue though is how rushed the everything
feels, I feel a bit dirty saying this when I so often complain about
decompression in modern comics but this is a pretty far out premise here both for
readers and more so for the four people who so far have lived in a world
completely devoid of sci-fi tech and I think everyone could do with a little
time to let it sink in and get used to it but no, Thompson (and Campbell) speed
through the whole set up, feeling very much like they’re just getting all this
shit out of the way so they can go back to writing about what the stuff they
want and having read the whole series so far, that ain’t the more fantastical
element of the Jem concept, in fact I think they’d be happy just writing about
a bunch of bands in a real-life setting. This means that from now on the
character-based stuff will be excellent but it does feel like they’re doing the
concept a disservice by not using the sci-fi elements to their fullest. Mind
you we’re only one and a bit stories into things so there’s still time, but an
issue showing Jerrica getting used to her Jem abilities sure would be have been
nice. This is just ‘bam, powers, set up done, on with the show’, I will admit
that the original ‘toon was like that too, but surely something like a new
comic book allows us to do what the show couldn’t?
I’ll move on, because the book certainly
does, and moan about redesigns; actually I won’t because most of the redesigns
shown off in this issue are great – Shana, Jem and Jerrica are just straight
modern updates and look damn spiffy, Jerrica has been made littler and cuter to
accentuate the differences between she and Jem a little more which I’m fine
with it, the new Jem look is pretty fucking awesome, with all this huge hair
and very stylised costumes rather than sparky 80’s stage gear. Aja, Synergy and
Kimber have had far more of a radical redesigns and, meh, I suppose two out of
three ain’t bad; Aja has put on a few pounds because Campbell has a fetish for
BBWs but it really suits her and she looks utterly adorable and still looks
like Aja (rather than just chubby Asian woman), they’ve retained her angular
hair and I dunno, she just still feels like the same character; Kimber’s
redesign into a wafer-thing, pale as a sheet lesbian took me a minute to get
used to, probably because Kimber was always my preferred Hologram if you get my
drift but after the initial shock and knee-jerk turning up of nose to something
so different it’s grown on me, she still looks really hot and still looks like
Kimber and her ‘standard outfit’ with the frills adapts very well to skinny
lesbian, as for her switch in sexuality…well I’ve seen that episode with her
and Stormer so I totally get where they’re coming from, I might have left her
bi to fit in with the original cartoon a little better but, yeah I see where they’re
coming form. Synergy I just flat out hate, I mean it’s not too much of an issue
as she won’t be appearing much in this arc (I know I said I’d move on, but I
was lying), I agree she needed one – her old look would never fit with today’s
fashion or counter-cultures – but I just don’t like the final outcome, I think
it might just be too different, or maybe too muscly and androgynous or maybe I
just don’t like it as a design period, whatever it is it ain’t for me.
Showtime Part 2 (Jem & The Holograms issue 2)
Quick
Summary: after a performance and interview with Lin-Z the Misfits (Pizzazz,
Stormer, Jetta and, shit, the one with white hair… Roxy!) discover one entry in
their Misfits Vs competition is actually good (though Pizzazz won’t admit it)
and getting a lot of votes – Jem & The Holograms. Rio, the reporter
covering their competition gets thrown out for telling Pizzazz they’re screwed
and finds out about the band on his phone while listening to clunky dialogue.
At Holograms HQ, the band are also finding out how popular they are online,
well except Aja because she won’t wake up and keeps throwing shoes at Kimber.
The Holograms go and volunteer at the Starlight Community Centre, teaching kids
how to play instruments, and get asked to play a fund-raiser then Rio turns up,
initially thinks it’s Jem working with orphan Ashley, then asks Jerrica out on
a date, after assurances that he’s not doing it just go get a story (he can’t
even if he wanted to, because he’s covering the Misfits). Meanwhile Kimber
skips out to go to a Misfits in-store singing where only Stormer hasn’t bailed,
pulls her and the two go for coffee, as they get on famously the other Misfits
– who were shopping – see them and Pizzazz is furious, to be continued.
This was much better than the first
issue, probably because it’s nearly all what the two want to write, but the
dialogue was a lot stronger too (and it was already pretty strong), other than
that one page where Rio is using his phone outside the Misfits dressing room,
that was a little painful, lots of slang, sayings and ‘musicy’ terms being
dropped unnaturally by a writer I’m going to assume doesn’t use them herself –
you can always tell when someone doesn’t use a term and then does and there
seemed to be a lot of it on this page. Other than that it was a breeze to read,
Jerrica even spends a page talking about how strange the Jem powers are (well,
it gets brought up a couple of times) but I’d rather see it, still it’s not
fair to criticize something for not being something else you personally thought
it should have been. It also has the first scene to make me genuinel laugh out
loud and that is the two scens with Aja throwing shoes at Kimber, I think Aja
may have graduated to ‘favourite Hologram’ for this incarnation (“you will run
out of shoes Aja!” – great). Oh yeah and the Misfits debuted, given how they’re
not in the film I was relieved to see them debut so early, as they should,
they’re in just about as many episodes of the TV series as the Holograms and
had just as many dolls. They make as good an impression as their page time
allows – Pizzaz is unpleasant, bratty but cool, Stormer is the nice one but now
turned up to 11, Roxy and Jetta don’t do much but they will get more panel time
later in the story, so they made an ok first impression but , well, it’s a
‘problem’ that the Misfits have always had and that’s that they really are
quite likeable, they’re far more flawed than the Holograms but they’re not evil, I don’t want to see them fail, the
comic seems to be casting them more a rivals than enemies and I’m ok with that
and Campbell’s redesigns of the Holograms have gone a little way to balancing
out another issue the Misfits always had – they’re the cool kids, they’re the
Alternatives, Jem & The holograms are bubblegum pop, in the real world
they’d be the enemy (see also: Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers) but the Misfits
are still too likeable.
Redesigns! Lin-Z is pretty much the same
as she was so nothing to talk about there and anything that makes Rio look less
like an 80’s douchebag is fine by me, and he still retains that ‘annoyingly
attractive and stylish’ look, just updated (and this time doesn’t look like a
compete douchebag, I’m jealous of him here, I flat out didn’t like him in the
original incarnation of the franchise). The Misfits…well they’re all too cute,
that’s just Campbell’s art style but it doesn’t help with the whole ‘likeable’
issue, I want to cuddle Pizzazz (not sure she’d like that though) other than
that…well Roxy’s just a straight update, she looks good, Jetta meanwhile
continues to the be sexiest thing in the franchise though she’s switched
instrument and, um, race – well she’s still common English trying to be upper
class British but now she’s black BUUUUT she was originally supposed to be
black and her designer was asked to change her to British (I forget why) so
this is fine by me and dark skin works really well with a black and white
outfit and hair so she actually looks better this way I find. Pizzazz looks
fucking awesome with her Goth Punk makeover and I’m not just saying that
because it agrees with my own counter-culture leanings, I’m saying that because
that is totally what Pizzazz would look like today (and she has an awesome
green Mohawk), it feels like a natural choice when updating her look to today’s
(anti)fashions is what I mean in sensible words. Stormer’s new look sucks
though, I just utterly hate it, I’ve thought about why for a while and decided
this: unlike say Aja she no longer feels
like Stormer, the changes to her face and hair and increase in her ‘the good
one’ role are so severe that combined with her new body type I can no longer
see the previous character, just a girl using the same name. Her outfit was
brilliantly updated but the rest of her, not at all.
Showtime Part 3 (Jem
& The Holograms issue 3)
Quick
Summary: The Misfits storm in (ha) and having a row with Stormer in the coffee
shop and it makes the evening news, Pizzazz is pissed at Stormer even though
they only ended up on the news because of the scene she caused, also Clash is there
them now. Jerrica meets Rio for their date and he takes her to a local
broadwalk while Kimber mopes about Stormer and forces Aja to advise her.
Pizzazz takes out her frustration on everyone at a recording and only becomes
even more annoyed when she finds Clash reading about Jem & The Holograms
playing the Starlight benefit gig, a guitar is broken, forcefully. In order to
please her favourite band Clash calls her old friend Blaze, who is going to be
working at the charity do, to make sure that Jem & the Hologram’s first gig
will be their last.
And the book just keeps getting better,
even as Stormer feels less and less like Stormer and more like Campbell’s dream
girl. The odd dialogue issue that plagued the previous two issues is seemingly
completely gone, Thompson seemingly having now perfected the art of a group of
annoyed girls arguing over trivial bullshit that is none-the-less very
important to them and to the story. The book has also morphed into one about
bands in a real world setting, no mention is made of the, y’know, living
hologram or the sci-fi tech or the hi-tech secret basement and these more
fantastical elements will now take a back seat for the rest of the arc. The
upside of this is that we get to spend all our time with a bunch of really likeable
characters; the downside is, well, we’re missing out on about half of the
concept.
On other topics, Jetta and Roxy get more
panel time this issue and get to make a good impression, they’re becoming
‘those two guys’ and I couldn’t be happier, there’s two panels at the end as
Jerrica and Rio kiss goodnight, one with big tough Roxy painting her nails and
the other with Jetta stuffing a bacon & egg sandwich down her throat and
these somehow convinced me that this incarnation of both characters is thoroughly
acceptable, I’m yet to figure out why. Roxy also provides us with this issue’s
funniest moment (isn’t I great when you have to narrow down the funny moments
to funniest?) as she mourns some bagels. Jerrica comes in second during her
date, which is actually a major focus of the issue but didn’t need a whole lot
of recapping, noting that her huge stuffed animal needs hadn’t been met; that
date is delightful, Rio and Jerrica have good chemistry, they’re very cute and
both actually seem to make the good impression that the story is telling us
they’re making on each other.
Clash is the only redesign introduced in
this issue (Blaze is new), though if you didn’t know who she was you may still
be wondering who the hell she is, she’s now very thin (and has an odd shaped
nose) but still very attractive, she’s lost that brat feel and style and like
all the Misfits has become more adorable and likeable, I’m in two minds about
her really, I get the redesign but would have liked it to be a bit more
faithful to the original look. Blaze is all new, and apparently Trans though
this isn’t mentioned in the comic itself I don’t think, anyway it’s irrelevant
as far as I’m concerned, whether she started out a boy or girl doesn’t really
matter, all I care about is that she feels like a natural addition to the cast,
looks like a natural addition to the cast (looking like an updated version of a
character, even though she isn’t) and she’s totally hot.
That Look At Star Wars: Heir to the
Empire fully put me off doing six full-size American comics in one go ever
again so I’m going to end things here so...
Next
time: food fights and big performances
* Yes, Wet Moon
was credited to a Ross Campbell, in case you missed it Ross Campbell is now
Sophie Campbell.
No comments:
Post a Comment