World War Tank Girl (Titan Comics – Martin / Parson)
By Gabe Wollenburg
Oh, Tank Girl. We will always love you. You are as brash and headstrong as always. You brim with confidence, spew profanity and occasionally surprise us with full frontal nudity. This issue gets the nudity out of the way on pages 1 and 2. And 10. And 11. And 14.
It is always tempting when considering Tank Girl to take a minute and [consider her role as a postfeminist icon](1). We’re not going to do that here. We just accept Tank Girl for who she is. And we hope she never changes.
Bring on World War Tank Girl, the third series in the trilogy of the current Tank Girl storyline. The eponymous Tank Girl and friends are thrust, (through mechanics of time travel not mentioned or explained in this storyline,) into a gritty yet appropriately cartoonish depiction of World War II. Suddenly arriving in the Ardennes Forest Region of Belgium in January of 1945, Tank Girl grabs some clothing, takes command, calls the patriarchy a bunch of vulgar words, and then punches some Nazis.
There’s a bizarre naked skydiving scene with Jet Girl and Booga gets into a bit of trouble in the kitchen of a secret kitchen in the Bavarian Alps. What more are you looking for?
Tank Girl co-creator and writer Allen Martin, along with fan-favorite artist Brett Parson do Tank Girl’s iconic status and style justice. Ultimately, it’s nice to see that there are still comics teams out there
willing to write stories where the protagonists can kick a grenade in the third rich’s face while simultaneously calling a table of Nazi military brass a profoundly dirty word.
It’s comedic. It’s violent. It’s vulgar. It’s fun. It’s Tank Girl.
World War Tank Girl releases on April 5, 2017.
