Comic Review: Rat Queens #10

Rat Queens #10

Image Comics

Writer: Kurtis J Wiebe

Artist: Owen Gieni

“The Colossal Nothing” has been both a fun, but frustrating arc for Rat Queens. While it has an interesting enough premise, the execution has been far from flawless. To recap, Palisade is being undone by a magical wizard that makes its residents disappear. Different characters have slowly been disappearing while the remaining Rat Queens try to figure out how to stop it. The idea is fun, but the arc is plagued by poor pacing and some odd decisions regarding the script.

Rat Queens #10 remedies most of the shortcomings of the previous issues to give the reader a satisfying end to the arc. Betty is the only Queen left standing, and it is up to her to put an end to the reality wizard. The spotlight on Betty does the character a lot of favors, and Wiebe uses this opportunity to further develop the smidgen. Through strong dialogue and entertaining backstory, we learn about Betty’s perspective on the regret that consumed the rest of her team. Wiebe ensures that Betty is more than just the comic relief of the team, adding layers to the character and an understanding about her seemingly lack regret throughout life. Betty and the wizard have a “battle” of words, using flashbacks in order to get each other to understand their perspectives. Eventually, Betty comes to understand the wizard’s motivations, which will likely have a large impact on the rest of the series.

This issue manages to avoid the pacing troubles that the rest of the arc has, and is a joy to read through. Even though there is very little action, the dialogue is top notch, and the stakes still feel incredibly high. This issue also does a wonderful job at connecting the previous Rat Queen series to the current one, filling in quite a few holes that lingered since the reboot.

Owen Gieni’s art complements Wiebe’s writing perfectly in this issue. Throughout the last couple of arcs, Gieni has been playing around with other art styles to suit the character’s circumstances. This issue really benefits from the artistic decisions due to the nature of the flashbacks. With Betty’s story, we get a children’s storybook sort of style. The wizard’s style is a pleasant surprise, with all of the characters looking like they belong in an episode of He-Man.

The rest of the art is standard fare for Rat Queens. The characters are highly expressive and just fun to look at. Panels that are meant to be ugly do so successfully, and the art does an overall solid job at putting the reader in the necessary mood. Some characters look a bit off during certain panels, but the issue is minor and nothing that hasn’t been in the series already. The book doesn’t exactly wow in any way when it comes to art, but it doesn’t have any glaring issues either.

Rat Queens #10 is a pleasant surprise and avoids most of the pitfalls that have tripped up previous issues. The story gets wrapped up fairly neatly and is full of wonderful moments, especially for Betty.