It’s always disturbing when satire and the real world are so hard to differentiate. Your Major Spoilers review of Bitch Planet Triple Feature #5 awaits!
BITCH PLANET TRIPLE FEATURE #5
Writer: Matt Fraction/Jon Tsuei/Nyambi Nyambi/Bassey Nyambi/Eyang Nyambi
Penciler: Elso Charretier/Saskia Gutekunst/Chris Visions
Colorist: Nick Filardi
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Lauren Sankovitch
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Previously in Bitch Planet Triple Feature: “Patriarchy is the disease. We are the cure.
Join the resistance with tales of appropriation, erasure, and feminist grannies…all with a healthy dose of backmatter.
100% Grade-A satire. Doctor approved, patient demanded.”
IN THE NOT-TOO-DISTANT FUTURE
I tell ya, every time I read an issue of this series, I come out of it feeling like I’ve been beat up. Our first tale doesn’t hold back, either, reminding us that the world outside the window in ‘Bitch Planet’ is sexist, racist and awful, all cloaked in a veil of “politeness” and feigned honesty. (Any comparison to anything outside any other windows is gonna be up to the beholder, I’m just here to review comics.) This issue provides three stories, each of which provides a different level of gut-punch: ‘Everyone’s Granny Is A Little Bit Feminist’ gives us an outspoken grandmother whose disappointment with her granddaughter ends badly (and uses the argument that she’s losing her mind instead of arguing against an oppressive patriarchy.) The second story, ‘Mirror Mirror’ evokes Hollywood white-washing and erasure issues through a pair of actors competing for the same roll, and things wrap up with ‘Basic Bitch’, a commentary that takes on both racial profiling and cultural appropriation, with tragic consequences.
A LOVELY ARRAY OF ART
It does dull the pain in my stomach a bit that all three segments are well-drawn, with Elsa Charretier’s ‘Granny’ being my favorite. Bitch Planet doesn’t pull any punches, and this issue reminds me of nothing so much as Mad Magazine in the late 50s/early 60s, savagely pointing out the idiocy and hypocrisy of day-to-day life in that retrograde era. There are amusing moments throughout this issue, but they’re always tempered with an immediate reminder that Things Are Not Right, making for a little black comedy in and around the existential horror. Nobody comes out of any of these stories okay, and that is the point and the lesson, if there is such a thing.
THE BOTTOM LINE: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
If you’re not reading the main Bitch Planet book, you are missing out on an important experience and an important comic, a book that will be held up for years as an underappreciated gem that made important points about the world through the lens of quasi-science fiction trappings. This issue takes place in familiar territory, with only little bits of technology to remind us that it is a future world (much like original ‘Star Trek’, which similarly made social commentary and critique hidden in the space stuff) and it’s a beautiful, fascinating (but HARD) read, leaving Bitch Planet Triple Feature #5 with a very impressive 4 out of 5 stars overall. Let’s just hope that the exaggerations for satire in these pages actually STAY exaggerations…
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