Moments before starting this post, I left a comment on Facebook that was something like "Young Animal fills a Doom Patrol-shaped hole in my heart that's been there since the Empire of Chairs." "The Empire of Chairs" being the last story in Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol.
Hyperbole aside, after finishing "The Milk Wars" crossover, I went out and bought all of the stuff Young Animal has put out (with the exception of Bug - the trade comes out soon!). And it's all fantastically good. Each book is very different, each is telling its story in remarkable and innovative ways. There's a lovely aesthetic cohesion that binds all the books together, and I want to say it's Vertigoesque. Can we make an adjective out of that imprint, please? It's been influential enough to warrant one.
So Mother Panic is just great. I'm still not certain that Violet Paige fulfills the requirements to be called a superhero, but she's got powers and seems to be doing good things. My son and I were talking about this character and her story, and we've both come to think it's a very interesting look at class - perhaps as a metaphor for the ways in which class is reinforced in contemporary North America. Plus, as the series is based in Gotham, I feel like I've still got my toe in a nice corner of a universe that I barely recognize these days. Maybe that's why I like Young Animal's books. They're telling stories about the corner in which I'm comfortable.
Jody Houser has, or seems to have, a very clear idea of where this tale is going. And the art in the book evokes the grittiness of Gotham through the lens of Violet's often hallucinatory world view. Lots of people accuse Batman of being every bit as mad as the villains he confronts - Violet is actually much closer to that level of mental illness. The difference is that she recognizes it for what it is, something that was done to her, and decides to make every last person involved pay.
And if she saves some people along the way, so much the better I guess.
Onward.
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