Help Us! Great Warrior #2 Review

Help Us! Great Warrior #2 has the titular character fall into a moment of self-doubt that Hadiyah has to pull her out of.

HELP US! GREAT WARRIOR #2
Writer/Artist: Madeleine Flores
Colourist: Trillian Gunn
Editor: Shannon Watters
Publisher: BOOM! Box
Cover Price: $3.99

 
Previously in Help Us! Great Warrior #1: Great Warrior and her lady team earn the title.

EPIC AND SWEET

Help Us! Great Warrior #2 is so sweet and so well crafted. It sprang from Madeleine Flores’ webcomic of the same name. The issue focuses on the titular character – Great Warrior – and the village she and her companions are trying to protect her village of locals from a monster that suddenly appeared. Unfortunately, the monster doesn’t really want anything save to sow wanton destruction, so that doesn’t leave the Great Warrior with a lot of opportunity for recourse.

It comes out in Flores’ narrative that this village is rife with destruction and, as a result, have become quite nomadic in their lifestyle. It’s kind of a big theme for such a sweet, all-ages friendly comic issue. Help Us! Great Warrior #2 focuses on the Great Warrior’s embarrassment and shame around not being able to prevent yet another occasion for moving. Initially, she tries to get her companions to move the villagers out of the immediate vicinity so that she might defeat the monster, but when that proves futile she is temporarily at a loss.

Hadiyah is one of the bigger supporting characters in Hadiyah who is awesomely both female and non-Caucasian. Hadiyah is Flores’ secret heroine of Help Us! Great Warrior #2. She brings up a story from Great Warrior’s personal history that’s also a secret and nobody knows it about her, in order to illustrate a point and bring strength to the disenfranchised villagers while inspiring strength and determination in Great Warrior herself. It’s a clever move that reveals a lot about Hadiyah’s character – especially her intelligence – and Great Warrior’s. It’s refreshing to see what is essentially a superheroine archetype need a little boost.

Help Us! Great Warrior #2 also illustrates just how deep a mythology Madeleine Flores has designed for this world. It’s on a scale that is reminiscent of Jeff Smith’s Bone that promises a lot of interesting stories and threats that could be coming the readers’ way.

Flores marries the aforementioned scale of storytelling with silly sweetness that many readers have come to expect from independent webcomics. Help Us! Great Warrior #2 doesn’t shy away from being silly and pointing out some obvious – and awesome – moments like the female characters’ brute strength or the villagers’ blank acceptance of events. Flores balances out her deeper material with well-placed moments of levity.

Readers who are fans of the Lumberjanes and Bravest Warriors series will find a home in the pages of Help Us! Great Warrior #2 (and the rest of the series, to be sure). This issue is great and absolutely adorable!

SUPER CUTE

Writer and creator Madeleine Flores also takes on the artist responsibility in the pages of Help Us! Great Warrior #2and does a really great job. Each character is cute, well-designed and unique. Great Warrior is a truly unique creature to the world she inhabits one that, at first glance, most readers and characters would not consider a threat. Flores does a stellar job at challenging reader expectations in both her art and her narrative.

Hadiyah is absolutely stunning, she draws the eye in the pages of Help Us! Great Warrior #2 and with her shoulder gauntlets she looks every bit the combatant that she is. It’s great that Flores has Hadiyah as her representation of young women of colour. She looks strong, she is strong, but the hard shell cracks when she has to be emotionally soft.

Help Us! Great Warriors #2 has very simple set dressing and environments, but the story being as personal as it is the panels never feel lacking. The villagers, for their part, provide some interesting set dressing. Flores provides so much populace that they add sparkle to the desert landscape.

Help Us! Great Warrior #2 is cute as all get out!

BOTTOM LINE: READ THIS ISSUE

Help Us! Great Warrior #2 is an outstanding all-ages issue that has a lot of heart, a lot of representation all wrapped up in a sweet package. Read it!