Reprinting the four issue DC Vertigo mini-series
Writer: Alan Grant
Artists: Andy Pritchett (p), Philip Bond, Phil Gascoine (i)
Publisher: Titan Books (ISBN 1-84023-725-2)
Tank Girl with no input from creators Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin should feel a little like Sandman without Neil Gaiman, or The Comics Journal without Gary Groth...
...but it lives on, and it lives fresh.
The Plot - Tank Girl is pregnant. Everyone (well, almost everyone) assumes the dad is regular boyfriend Booga the Kangaroo. The followers of Blood God Baal are convinced it's a miracle and here's the saviour/destructor of the Earth. Jet Girl and Sub Girl arrive on the scene, the real rulers of Earth are revealed, and things go BOOM.
Well, this book is subtitled "Apocalypse", what did you expect, peace and harmony?
Part of the enjoyment from this books comes in seeing the great and famous getting it in the neck - or the head, or the face, or wherever. Another part is appreciating all the hidden backgrounds details and jokes, whether scripted or not it doesn't matter, it all just adds to the anarchy, mayhem and just plain fun of this book.
Grant obviously had a ball in writing this - he had a storyline, he could destroy the earth, and he went bananas - even down to a cameo from Princess Di...she gets herself a head butt from Tank Girl late on in the book, but can't even manage a walk-on part in Marvel's X-Statix. Sure this series originally saw print in 1995, but it's only just been republished in trade form, and her appearance has made it through intact... Someone seemed to forget to leak this one to the Daily Mail purely to boost their own profile, didn't they, RJ?
Disconnect your brain, enjoy the ride - it starts off very quietly, the whole first chapter is almost...peaceful...but when the violence and destruction kicks in, and you see all the little ways Earth is going to the dogs, it rolls along so fast you'd be hard pressed to keep up.
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