No Destiny But The One We Make: Reviewing ‘The Powerpuff Girls’ #1

Sugar, spice, everything nice and a dash of chemical X. These were the ingredients chosen to create a fun comic. Okay, it was more that a group of great creative folks came together but there was no way to pass up using the theme song lyrics.

That’s right, The Powerpuff Girls #1 brings all the colorful all-ages fun of the cartoon series to comic book pages. Instead of Professor Utonium the creators here are Kelly Thompson, Paulina Ganucheau, and Jeff Eckleberry.

Everything about this just feels right. A mostly simple story about the trio of girls being delivered ‘destinies’ from a robot called the Highly Intelligent Machine. New destinies that fit their personalities and separate them so that HIM can cause chaos and destruction across Townsville.

Each of their destinies are really fun and unique to them, while pulling from some very familiar genres. The hardboiled detective, the wrestler, and the lives of cartoon style animals. Thompson perfectly blends the more serious notes with the outlandish fun ones, fitting for this established world.

Similar to how Ganucheau just really gives this world such weight and big bold colorful energy. Of note were the pages featuring the girls’ various destinies, big full spreads where each life was depicted in rows of panels. Just so perfect and sound, using each of their distinct colors to really give a filter tone to everything.

One could swear that the cartoon just leapt off the screen and came to life on the page. That’s how close this artistic style feels to the world we were introduced to, all those years ago.

All that visual energy flows over to the letters, as Eckleberry really plays up their unique voices. With colorful bubbles, shifting fonts, and other elements that allow the words to shift as necessary. Flowing across the pages so smoothly, never tripping over each other or obscuring the rest of the artwork. Perfectly framing it, helping move the eyes where they should go.

Comic books are used to tell so many varieties of stories. From the big dark and super serious to the wild and wacky. Superheroes to horror to commentary on the world around us or science fiction epics, and everything in-between. Sometimes, all we want from a comic is pure light-hearted fun. That’s fully what this team has delivered.

This is one of those times where only positive thoughts came to mind as a I read. Not a bit of fat to be trimmed or story elements that didn’t work. Just a quick, fun, and vivid read from start to finish. That makes me eager to read the next one, and all the other ones to come.

The Powerpuff Girls #1 is now available from Dynamite Entertainment.