Sirens: Love Hurts #3 – Tini Howard, Writer; Babs Tarr, Artist; Miquel Muerto, Colorist
Ray – 8.5/10
Ray: This energetic Black Label murder mystery has been an intriguing read with gorgeous art, but its tone often feels a bit at war with its subject matter. Black Canary and the Sirens have been on the trail of the mysterious streak of murders targeting young women, and now the culprit has been unmasked – Horoscope, a deranged woman who has taken on Calendar Man’s modus operandi and become far deadlier than he ever was. Making it worse, her secret identity, Portia, is none other than the therapist who many of these women are seeing. The heroes and antiheroes are getting closer to the truth, but there’s another problem in the way – their many, many personal issues. Dinah is trying to find enough time for the case with her wedding prep, Selina isn’t sure where she and Bruce actually stand, and Harley and Ivy are having a very good time – to the annoyance of everyone else when they can’t keep their hands off each other.
The main plot here is pretty grim and the comic doesn’t shy away from this – Horoscope is taking advantage of young women at their most vulnerable and killing them, and is doing it all to fulfill some strange compulsion to complete an astrological set. She’s a deeply creepy villain for how senseless she is. That makes it a little odd that this comic is so broadly comic at points, particularly the scenes this issue set at Dinah’s bachelor party (which brings in a few more Bat-guest-stars who are just as confused as Bruce and Ollie are by everything going on here). The art by Babs Tarr, who drew much of the Batgirl of Burnside run, is incredibly colorful and kinetic, and is perfectly suited for the funnier scenes. It’s a little harder to sync up with the darker ones. Overal, this book really isn’t like anything else at Black Label and I’m not sure it hits 100% of what it’s going for, but the end result is a fun, weird comic that very much has its own vibe.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
