Sirens: Love Hurts #1: The Girls Are Back in Town

With Birds of Prey having wrapped up, there’s been a vacancy in the DC publishing line for a book of its ilk. Sirens: Love Hurts #1 fills that void in a more laid-back manner. For some, the excitement for this comes at the behest of Tini Howard’s return, who has penned a good bit of Catwoman and Harley Quinn in recent years, now bringing her talents to the rest of the Gotham City Sirens.

That being said, when you have an artist like Babs Tarr on your book, the visuals kind of become the driving force of both the marketing and appeal for readers. Tarr is, of course, doing what she does best: illustrating personality-rich scenes of sexy people living their lives as messily as possible. For all of its advertising and “Black Label” certification, I was surprised by how toned down this book was, from its wholehearted appeal to the gaze of anyone with eyes to its script echoing the kind of adult humor found in the Harley Quinn animated series—something Howard herself pointed to as a comparison when discussing their goals for this book.

Unlike that show, the more tepid and controlled approach to raunchiness in this title benefits it and its characters a whole lot more. Its lack of distinction from the main continuity, outside of some specific status quo details, allows the reader to backfill a lot of information, enabling Howard to hit the ground running with strong dialogue, interpersonal character dilemmas, and solid comedy that plays directly into the pop-media caricatures of our iconic Sirens. It has a nice beach-read vibe—and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. The tone, the intimate banter, and the elastic energy of the art made this such a breezy yet character-dense read for me.

It helps that the plot is so straightforward in its design. Is it yet another murder mystery with a calendar theme in Gotham City? Yes, but Howard and Tarr bring such a fun, catty vibe to the whole debacle that it feels infinitely fresher than the latest Long Halloween redux. It’s layered with some interesting commentary on class in relation to gender, the flippancy with which it’s discussed, and patriarchal structures—all without dragging the book down with lectures or textbook-style text boxes. It all comes from a place of character, realistically intertwining itself into the heart and humor of our Sirens’ everyday existence.