Fight Girls #1

Fight Girls #1

AWA Upshot Studios 2021

Created, Written & Illustrated by Frank Cho

Coloured by Sabine Rich

Lettered by Sal Cipriano

Ten hard-as-nails women face off in an ancient contest of champions where the winner truly takes all: the title of "Queen of the Galaxy." To win the challenge each contestant must survive the hazards of the planet's harsh landscape, the ferocious predators on and below its surface, and their fellow contestants. This edition of the contest has a twist: one of the contestants is an infiltrator who has her eye on something bigger than the prize. Who is she and what does she really want?

I will be honest I was on the fence about this one, but AWA Upshot hasn’t steered me wrong yet so of course I had to give it a go. I am pleasantly surprised by this book as I thought it might be a tad too pinup for my tastes but it has a solid premise and some darn fine writing, solid characterisation and plenty of action and intrigue thrown into the mix. The Queen is dead, long live the Queen as they say and its interesting to me for the very reason of this contest and I honestly hope they’ve done all the testing on the applicants to cover every aspect of a Queen’s reign.

I am rather enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exquisitely. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter is really rather exceptionally well rendered. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story we find ourselves drawn deeper and deeper in.

I appreciate the way that this is being structured and how we see the layers within the story emerge and grow. The unexpected moments, the characterisation and the moments that create the intrigue all happen within these layers and whether or not they wok to enhance the main arc or simply swirl around it they add depth and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is beautifully achieved.

The interiors here really are rather stunning. The linework we see is strong, clean and crisp plus with the varying weights and techniques that we see bringing the detail work alive is spectacularly well rendered. Considering their locale I’m loving the use of backgrounds here and they don’t have to be in super sharp focus for them to be effective either. They really enhance the mood, tone and feel as well as work within the composition of the panels to create the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered as well. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a sharp eye for colour and how to really utilise it to its fullest.

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With the way that we see this issue it’s easy to see how this is going to be a five issue run. Four tests and with how the intrigue outside the test is being set up for the grand finale really do give you a sense that the story has a set completion date. I like seeing this and that the sense you get from the way that this issue reads and the clip at which the story actually moves. This has some amazingly solid writing and characterisation along with some brilliantly rendered interiors which make this so much better than you’d have originally thought it was going to be.