Written by Cecil Castellucci
Illustrated by Adriana Melo
Published by DC Comics
I am unabashed fan of writer Cecil Castellucci. She writes smart and relevant stories with every comic book she’s a part of. This book is her best work thus far as she has taken characters that normally would be in the background and brought them to the forefront. It really is something else.
In the beginning of this book, Granny Goodness is giving Beautiful Dreamer orders. Granny is trying to get Aurelie back on track and she finally orders Beautiful Dreamer to give Aurelie a merciful dream.
This leads us to finding out that Granny is trying to actually brainwash all of the Furies. But this whole scheme just backfires in a very big way.
You see, Beautiful Dreamer gets free! And now, she’s wrecking havoc! Aurelie gets loose, too.
Now, it’s up to Granny and the rest of the Furies to track them both down. They better do it soon too. That is, they should do it before Darkseid discovers that his warrior women are the source of his army’s recent troubles in his war happening on New Genesis.
There are some great moments in the issue. Hearing Barda say to a man “You will never break my chains” comes at a glorious moment in the book. Seeing Granny talk around Darkseid like he is a stupid boy is both hilarious and pointed.
We also get a great moment when Beautiful Dreamer talks about how difficult it was to push off a man’s advances. Granny just replies with the line “in my day, if someone got fresh with you, you’d slap them or throw a drink in their face.” And then she sadly follows it up with “or you endure it and stay quiet and keep your power.”
It’s a hard but honest scene that feels real. Castellucci just nails each scene and makes them all feel real. Then, something happens to Beautiful Dreamer that is both horrifying to read and made me sit up and pay attention.
It’s pretty brutal, but the creative team handles it all very well. There is a great ending here too that hits the reader hard. This is one incredible book. I’m not sure where we might end up next, but I know I have never read anything quite like this comic.
RATING: A
