Do you watch BreadTube-style video essays? I sure watch a hell of BreadTube-style videos essays, especially for someone who essentially has no idea what that means. I was simply told recently that I watch and enjoy a lot of BreadTube style video essays.
One of the things you come to learn if you watch enough of these types of video essays is that video game companies and their surrounding sub-markets are operating in a mode of hyper-capitalism with unprecedented levels of manipulation of and general ambivalence toward their customer base. This almost criminally unsustainable business model is so comically evil that it seems like it’s almost begging to be lampooned in a superhero comic.
This is exactly what we seem to be getting from Gotham City Sirens.
Earlier in the month, our (arguable) heroes Harley, Ivy, and Catwoman embarked on a heist. Here in the third issue, as we open with the Sirens locked up in Punchline’s Evil Gaming and Streaming and Energy Drink Compound, we’ll see them embark on what may be defined as the narrative opposite of a heist: a jailbreak. They make quick work of their holding cell, but escaping the grounds of the whole compound is going to require the cooperation of White Rabbit… in whatever physical form they may find her.
We’ve certainly arrived at a more cohesive and fleshed out vision for the cultural setting this book wants to exist in. In this cutesy, cartoonish corporate pitch of an expositional sequence, Williams lays out the bullet points of the commentary she wishes to make with these scripts; namely, that the enterprises of these “content houses” and “gaming compounds” trying to sell you a complete gaming-plus-necessary-product experience are malicious and manipulative, and that the flaws in these systems that can lead to consumers being scammed out of their money are being shrugged off as inevitable growing pains of “groundbreaking technology.” By putting this business practice in the hands of a Gotham City villain, (and thereby adding a touch more murder than we usually find in these real-life predatory gaming companies, Leah Williams makes a sharp, if brief, zeitgeist-ish social commentary about the lies of the inherent goodness of capitalism when applied to online gaming spaces. It’s taken 3 out of the miniseries’ 4 issues to get here, but it’s good stuff.
We’re back to Matteo Lolli on art duties this week. If Lolli was going to have to come back, this reviewer is glad to see that this issue, a faced-paced fight-scene majority issue of what has already been a pretty fast paced series, is the one where editorial has decided to make that happen. His backgrounds are still pretty bare, and what detail there does end up being can be sloppily executed, but there’s enough kinetic energy in the execution of the fight choreography to keep things interesting and to serve the bare bones of what’s necessary to advance the story.
After this penultimate issue, I feel ready to say that I’ve enjoyed this revisiting of the Gotham City Sirens title more than I would have predicted. If you had pitched this gaming culture commentary angle to me at the outset, I would have said that this wasn’t for me, but each of these weeks has found me pleasantly surprised. At the very least, I feel ready to re-engage with this whole BreadTube thing with a little more awareness.
Recommend if…
- You love a good jailbreak fight
- You need to vent some angst about the gaming industry
- You’re looking for low-stakes, light-hearted fare
Overall: Gotham City Sirens is finally doing a more coherent job of delivering its pop culture/social commentary message. It’s just a little odd that it’s picking up that steam with only one issue to go.
Score: 7.5/10
English (US) · 