ICYMI! X-Terminators #1: Breakups are Hard…

Issue #1 of X-Terminators is jam packed with charm, action, blood and guts, and that is only the beginning! 

Dazzler, Jubliee and Boom-Boom are a great trio to follow in this issue. Their friendship really shines through this story, even with everything else going on, and it does not feel too forced or staged. This is an issue with could have easily slipped into the #girlboss #gaslight #gatekeep territory, but it manages to create a great space for itself, allowing its characters to be messy and fun and relatable, even through they are powerful superheroes, who send quite a lot of this issue covered in blood, sweat, and vampire guts. 

The artwork and colour by Gomez and Valenza, partnered with Lanham’s lettering is stunning. And the whole stylisation of the comic is clever and creative. From the framing of the first and last couple of pages in a type of ‘film/documentary/ record’ cover, giving the readers an ‘advisory warming’, to having the artwork really fill up the space of these pages, it creates a fun and exciting environment, and really pull you in. Theses are not pages which you will be looking away from until you are finished with this issue. 

The issue never looses its energy, and has a good flow from the start to the finish. The conflicts, fights, the reasons why these women are incapacitated seems believable and realistic. 

As a woman reading this comic, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about the fact that they get trapped by such a small, human thing (trying not to give spoilers here). The way they get captured, is a way so many women have found themselves to have ended up in dangerous and vulnerable positions. It is extremely scary but at the same time, bring in this ‘real-world’ thing into a comic about these three extremely powerful women makes you root for them even more. 

I am excited to see where this goes next.