|
|
|
Girls #20
Book Released: 13 Dec 2006
Posted 26 Dec 2006
Writer: The Luna Brothers
Artist: The Luna Brothers
Letters: Joshua Luna
Colors: Jonathan Luna
Publisher: Image Comics, Inc.
4.50 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by J. W. DeBolt Jr.
|
|
The proliferation of the Girls in Pennystown has intensified the split between the men and women that may now be unmendable. The women, or at least their self-proclaimed leader Nancy, are fed up with the men because not all of the men can prevent themselves from following their biological imperative when approached by one of the fertile, naked Girls. After the captive men escape from the shed, Nancy picks up an axe and, upon finding Lester in flagrante delicto, decides to exercise her new ex cathedra privilege and cut the problem off at its root — or at least Lester’s root.
The women finally see the giant sperm monster thing at work in the woods as it ingests Barbara’s eviscerated body. In the previous issue, we felt the deep pathos of this group of women fooling themselves that everything would be OK while Barbara tried walking along with them with her intestines hanging out — caused by an attack by the Girls. Ouch. And that’s one of the big draws for this series — that people make bad decisions based on too little information, their basest instincts, misconceptions and prejudice, all in an environment where the normal social inhibitors have broken down. Like Lord of the Flies, we see how people will really act when left to themselves.
The constant squabble over authority continues. Nancy makes the wise decision to burn Barbara’s body — even though it’s minutes after she’s stopped breathing — so that the Girls would not get more fuel or energy or whatever it is they get from dragging off the bodies. But the social inhibitors that make some of the women argue against this delay the group too long, putting it in greater danger. In this case, we see that the hard decisions that must be made, which seem heartless, are essentially the right ones to promote the survival of the town. We see the proclivities of human nature heated to a boil as some are willing to do whatever is necessary to survive and others cannot control their natural impulses even if their actions endanger the women and, by extension, themselves.
The Girls seem to represent the nature of life in its purest, conscienceless form, where propagation, consumption and further propagation are the only things that matter. The women seem to be moving in this direction. Meanwhile, by the end of this chapter, the situation’s original progenitor is primed to make another kind of contact with the first Girl — one which may begin to reveal the ultimate secret behind the invasion. Similar in treatment to stories like the TV series Jericho and Lost, Girls keeps the big mystery a mystery till the end — which the creators say will be with issue #24.
I highly recommend that you pick up the trade paperbacks and start from the beginning. And you can check out my review of an earlier issue here. I trust that the end will carry the weight and depth that the story itself has exhibited.
Possible spoiler alert: If I may put forth a slice of my personal supposition regarding the great mystery of Girls, and it may just be the most obvious guess, I think it likely that an alien being has laid an egg on Earth, surrounding Pennystown, in the form of an invisible sphere, with the women of the town serving as the albumin for the growing creature at the center of this invisible egg, and the men serving as the life donors to the girls that are produced in the way that living cells multiply after fertilization. Or something like that. But read for yourself to try to figure out what it’s all about. I could be wrong.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
|
|
