Fight Girls #3

Fight Girls #3

AWA Upshot Studios 2021

By Frank Sho

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 was mad when #1 didn’t wake up and finish and got knocked out of the competition and this issue my other favourite well let’s not talk about what happened to her because while it was pretty epic, epically gross and somewhat graphic which I kind of loved, but I’m done rooting or maybe I should root for the traitor who isn’t whom she appears to be though I doubt she’ll end up dying in this book. Something tells me that she’s going to win it all and seize control of the power and do something even more epically disastrous. Gut feeling and all.

I wasn’t going to read this because I had preconceived notions, which is a mistake on anyone’s part, but this is what I do and I read it and absolutely loved it, so why is that? Well the plot & story development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development we see through the dialogue, character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter helps to flesh them their personalities. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages we become more embroiled in the intrigue and drama.

How we see this being structured and how the layers continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen is strongly rendered. How the layers open up the avenues to be explored and how much depth, dimension and complexity to the story is positively amazing. The drama we see as well outside the competition really takes this to that place it needs to be. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is exceptionally well achieved.

What can you say about these interiors except that this is so classic Cho. The linework is impeccably strong and with the varying weights and techniques that we see creating the attention to detail that we see. Because of the very nature of the story you cannot have just blank backgrounds so what we see expands and enhances the moments beautifully. They also work within the composition of the panels to bring the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story beautifully. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows just this incredible understanding of how colour works. Seeing the blues of the water, the shades of white in the suits and the marine life shows a skill of how to maximise the effect that colour has.

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I can’t wait to learn the secrets behind number seven as well as the man trying to learn about her as well, hopefully the one that cracks her scheming wide open. That there really is more than meets the eye here and that we don’t know what that is yet is some excellent writing inside and out. The superb writing and the dynamic characterisation along with these stellar interior artwork keeps bringing us this story that intensifies with each issue.