Gotham City Sirens is back this month and in full swing this week, as Gotham’s most capable costumed ladies are in trouble with one issue left to go. Their heist, believe it or not, has gone wrong, and the spaceship-themed nightclub they’re infiltrating has just turned out to be not themed at all but fully functional and is hurtling into orbit. Can our intrepid Sirens neutralize the threat powering the ship and return themselves safely back to Earth? Can the intrepid Comics News team here at Batman News band together to deliver you your reviews? All of this and more ahead!
Preparedness is the key to any heist story, and improvising in the face of the unanticipated is the measure of a heist leader’s capabilities. Harley and Selina both make perfect sense with this in mind, but Ivy can feel a little tacked on as we get into the heart of the adventure. Ivy is not a tactical character with shifting loyalties like the other two; she’s driven solely by the altruistic and supernatural connection to the Earth which informs her great power. It’s what has made her and Harley such an endearing opposites-attract couple. Her spearheading of this particular heist as a means to take down this insidious and environmentally disastrous nightclub is a useful enough entryway into the adventure, and her powers remain useful even as the ship launches into orbit, but it’s a strange match for a straight-up heist.
Artist Haining and colorist Alex Guimarães splash the pages with the fun and wackiness a reader expects from a sci-fi heist team up. Ivy’s vine powers and combat are of particular note and stand out among some of the more repetitive and generic fight structuring. Despero’s combat can start to feel a little one-note, so this great Ivy art is more than welcome.
As Batman News’ resident Harley Quinn correspondent, I especially appreciate Leah Williams peppering in the view from Throatcutter Hill and Harley’s new band of neighborly side-characters. They make little more than cameos, but it’s a useful bit of storytelling synergy which colors the world beyond the heist, and Haining does a remarkable job of capturing the character’s likenesses as established by the artists on Harley Quinn. Heist stories can often feel like bottle-episodes of TV, so these kinds of quick and simple strokes are effective.
Combing through this issue, it’s hard to shake the feeling that this Unfit For Orbit chapter of the Sirens quasi-franchise is “just another entry”, a sequel to a reboot. There’s nothing functionally wrong here, but there’s also precious little to recommend this issue above anything else on the stands.
Recommend if…
- You love the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie
- You need a good balance of romance and action between HQ and Ivy
- You’ve been a fan of the current HQ run and would like to see that world explored in a slightly broader context.
Overall:
This penultimate team-up issue effectively balances its sci-fi heist threads with decent character beats for each of the sirens. It often feels like a retread of the last GCS heist book, but a sporadically recurring heist series is a welcome idea befitting these beloved characters, so while there’s nothing at all groundbreaking here, the series overall can be enjoyable adventures. This is a middling issue in a passable series.
Score: 5.5/10
English (US) · 