Rat Queens #3

by Tori B. on November 28, 2013

The Rat Queens are trying to get to the bottom of their mysterious assassin, but along the way comes some personal problems as well. Shame that everything can’t be solved by slaughtering a troll.
 
 
Writer: Kurtis J Wiebe
Artist: Roc Upchurch
Cover: Roc Upchurch
Publisher: Image
 
 
Rat Queens so far has been an action packed first two issues, with some intriguing world building and a wide array of wickedly interesting characters. Now we finally delve a little bit more into these characters, and pick up little bits and pieces of just who the Rat Queens are—as a group and as individuals.
 
We start off with Hannah, the crazy ringleader of the Queens who’s been chilling in a holding cell, and while it starts off as if she’s in serious trouble, it ends up turning sweet. There’s certainly some tension between Hannah and Sawyer, and whether they have a history together isn’t totally clear, but they’re clearly sweet on each other, which leads to some adorably awkward panels. It’s nice to know that the big crazy has a soft spot inside her.
 
Up next, little smidgen Betty, who’s looking after her own heart as well. Unfortunately she doesn’t get off as sweetly as Hannah did. What’s amazing though is the fact that the relationship between Betty and Faeyri doesn’t even cause anyone to blink. Two girls, of two different races, both seemingly feminine as well (not neither of them being ‘butch’) and it’s just accepted, just the way it is, even encouraged by the Queens that Betty seems pretty happy. And yet, real life relationship problems get in the way, it’s not a happy relationship for everyone, which despite how sweet everything seems, is just the right dose of reality to keep the story from becoming too sweet and keeps the plot moving. We also find out that there’s a lot more to Betty than what meets the eye, and she doesn’t miss a thing that one, so it’ll be interesting to see how she interprets how to solve her personal love life.
 
It seems it only gets more dramatic as we move on. Not much is revealed about Dee in this issue, she talks about her family and faith a lot and it’s another thing that goes rather smoothly when brought up. Dee can talk about past faiths and her friends don’t judge her for it, occasionally they’ll have a question when they don’t understand, to which Dee will always try to answer to the best of her ability. But we are introduced to Violet’s family (well one member of it) and it’s not a happy reunion for her and clearly leaves her distracted for the remainder of the issue.
 
Wiebe has a good grip on his characters and it’ll be interesting to see how they grow as the series continues. Paired with the delightful sketchiness and pastel colours of Upchurch’s art, it’s a mostly light hearted series so far, following a bunch of adventuring young woman, but of course there’s always going to be more that meets the eye as they also try to solve their own personal problems as well.
 
But now that the mystery of who hired the assassins has been solved, it’ll be interesting to see how they decide to handle the information, knowing the characters a little bit better than we previously did.

Our Score:

8/10

A Look Inside