Tank Girl Forever – The Girl With The Tank Does A Little Superheroing…

It’s been a while since I checked in with my favourite girl with the tank. I’ve long held a torch for her, ever since the Deadline days. With Tank Girl Forever, it’s a lightweight superhero punchy punchy fest done Tank Girl style… problem is, with this issue, we’re lacking the other sort of punchy stuff, lacking some of the quick-fire madness of old.

(Cover by Brett Parson)

As with most Tank Girl tales, the storyline isn’t really the thing here. The best of Tank Girl never made much sense, it was all about the rush and the thrill of a madcap, daft as a badger adventure.
So, here in Tank Girl Issue 5, or Tank Girl Forever, part 1 of 4, we’re with Tank Girl, Jet Girl, Sub Girl, and the rest after they all disappeared into a beam of light in the Outback (in issue 4). Tank Girl’s reappeared in Melbourne, Hell-Born, with a kick-ass stupid super suit, armed to the teeth and facing down a weirdo in goth gear… a rather familiar weirdo…

And that’s it. That’s the storyline.
Everything after Tanky meeting the goth girl is stupid fighty fighty stuff. And I don’t mean that in a disparaging manner… it’s stupid daft, stupid funny stuff.

But even though the fighty fighty stuff is fun to see, it’s still too long and the dialogue isn’t tight enough, isn’t silly or funny enough… it’s doing something in 20-ish pages that could have tightly been done in 5, plus there’s the sense of forcing a storyline on a character that’s always been best just rattling around some daft situation. I just can’t see how it’s going to fill four issues. But hey, I could be wrong.
As for Parson’s artwork, well that is something that just works a treat.
There’s no point comparing it to Hewlett’s, that’s about as relevant as comparing a tuxedo and a swimsuit – both useful, but there’s no point turning up to a pool in a tux. And so it is here, for the lightweight storyline, the superhero touches, Parson’s art is rather perfect, and reminds me of a great looking Scooby Doo cartoon on old 60s comics pages, complete with aged, yellowing pages.
Oh, and sound effects… great sound effects…

Meanwhile, Camp Koala is being his very best Camp Koala… and it’s that sort of stupidity, done fast and funny, that’s mostly missing in here.

 
Tank Girl Issue 5 – Tank Girl Forever (Part 1 of 4) – Story by Alan Martin with Lou Martin, Written by Alan Martin, Art and letters by Brett Parson, published by Titan Comics

(Variant cover by Dan Panosian)

(Variant cover by Shaky Kane)