Reviews
[Comic Review] “Curb Stomp” #1 – Commands You To Take Notice
Reviewed By Katy Rex. “Curb Stomp” #1 has so much going for it, it’s easy to trust that many of the unresolved or unclear points will be addressed later in the series.
WRITTEN BY: Ryan Ferrier
ART BY: Devaki Neogi
PUBLISHER: BOOM! Studios
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: February 25, 2015
It’s not clear if this is a future dystopia or a slightly warped present; the technology, if it’s different, is not accessible to our protagonists in their lower-socioeconomic-status burrough. The society is clearly different. Unlike today, where areas with a lower socioeconomic status are often some combination of a police state and a chaotic self-policed crime zone, the turf arrangements in this comic made by local gangs seem formal, the guides and codes meaningful, and the police presence nonexistent.
The story follows The Fever, an all-girl gang in Old Beach, a small and generally neglected burrough that they police themselves. These girls will kick your ass for hurting one of their own, but they function very much like a family, even to the extent that the crew members are called “aunt” by Betty’s little sister Sweet Pea. Each of the members has her own intro, all in the internal narrative of Betty Machete, the character this issue follows– but with the gang dynamic, it’s highly possible that next issue will focus on another member. We have:
Violet Volt, a young black convenience store cashier, who jumps on the stage at a punk show to scream Black Flag lyrics and kick over amps, and who cracks jokes because she thinks she’s funny and it doesn’t matter if anyone agrees with her.
Bloody Mary– not as young as Violet, but none of them seem older than 25– who talks herself up in the mirror and who’s taking care of her bedridden mother. Mary is Asian, and even though she would clearly die for the Fever, coping with her mother’s illness is something she seems to carry mostly alone.
Derby Girl, an adorable wild card who combines her slightly psychotic violent streak with cute floral dresses, who’s seen buying drugs from Nikola and who is always willing to launch an ambush on roller skates. Derby’s white, with a chip on her shoulder and a constant need to prove herself.
Daisy Chain, or “Aunt Daisy” to Sweet Pea, seems to be Sweet Pea’s secondary caregiver with Betty. She and Betty are not only raising Sweet Pea together, but they seem to be something like the parental figures to the gang, in a leadership capacity but without being controlling or condescending. Fittingly, her weapon of choice is a thick metal chain. Daisy could be Latina, or like Betty, she could be Indian– this crew is diverse but race never seems to be an issue amongst one another.
And finally, Betty, our narrator, whose family is from Bengaluru and who, despite being a maternal presence to her sister and to her crew, is not always in control of her impulses. Betty incites the narrative arc that this series will clearly jump off on by defending her turf from a rival gang, The Wrath, and getting a little carried away– and that’s where the name of the series comes in.
These characters are amazingly fleshed-out in the writing, but without the character designs, this book would not be such a shining example of comics getting it right. Devaki Neogi’s faces are crucially expressive, the women’s body types are all realistic, their body language tells as much a story of their closeness as the dialogue. A small part of the final fight scene seemed somewhat staged, wooden, but the physicality of the book overall is dynamic. The colors by Neil Lalonde create a neon bright punk-era atmosphere, shifting only slightly from the club scene to the beach. The art combines some traditional ink outlining with very stylistic splashes and cutouts, creating a fresh experience for a comic fan without distracting from the story.
This book is good. It’s not like nothing you’ve ever read before– what is, really?– but it’s new and fresh enough that people will be standing up and taking notice of this series, which it richly deserves.
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Katy Rex writes comics analysis at endoftheuniversecomics.com, comicsbulletin.com, and bloody-disgusting.com. She really likes butt jokes, dinosaurs, and killing psychos and midgets in Borderlands 2. She has a great sense of humor if you’re not an asshole.
Reviews
‘The Death of Robin Hood’ Review: Michael Sarnoski’s Ultra-Violent, Dark Subversion of Legend
Myth gets brutally dispatched in The Death of Robin Hood, A Quiet Place: Day One filmmaker Michael Sarnoski‘s dark, loose adaptation of the 17th-century ballad Robin Hood’s Death. The 13th-century outlaw gets a gritty makeover in a subversion of his legendary heroics, forcing a reckoning as Robin Hood seeks peace and death in his final days. Sarnoski’s deconstruction of popularized myth comes forged in shocking violence and poignant introspection, yielding another deeply affecting story of meeting death on your own terms.
The Death of Robin Hood bypasses rehashing the origins of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, instead introducing a grizzled brute who opens the film with a ruthless culling of a young girl seeking vengeance against the outlaw. It’s a downright gentle introduction to Hugh Jackson’s Robin, who only escalates the jaw-dropping carnage when reunited with righthand Little John (Bill Skarsgård) as they seek to reclaim Little John’s home and family from vengeance seekers. These early sequences set up a stark contrast to the Disney-fied legends; Robin Hood’s heroics have been grossly exaggerated compared to the blood debts his violent exploits have racked up over the decades, which in turn have made him a hunted man spanning generations.
Photo Credit: Aidan Monaghan/A24
Grave injuries from battle lands Robin on a remote island priory under the care of Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer, 28 Years Later), where the strange, idyllic community, an enigmatic leper (Murray Bartlett), and a traumatized young girl, Margaret (Faith Delaney), force him to confront his legacy.
Sarnoski, who writes and directs, makes the hero the villain in his adaptation, ensuring a deeply rewarding character arc. At every point in the film, Robin is openly, often actively, seeking death. The stroke of poetic beauty here is that his view of a worthy death seismically shifts from beginning to end. What’s a hero’s death? That answer deepens and evolves along with its “hero” in his waning years. All the impressive survival instincts and battle savagery can’t outmatch or outrun endless cycles of death and loss, after all, despite Robin’s attempts to shrug off his own myth over the years.
Those cycles of violence loom large as a constant threat as the aged outlaw finds himself surrounded by those directly impacted by his past. It breeds conflict, external and internal, reflected in tense encounters and tenuous alliances that let Robin’s humanity slowly slip through his hardened survivor’s shell. It’s the type of role with just enough similarities that’ll draw inevitable comparisons to Hugh Jackman’s stellar work on Logan, but the tenured actor quickly sets the emotionally and morally complex Robin apart, whose primal ruthlessness belies a surprising capacity for aching empathy.
Photo Credit: Aidan Monaghan/A24
While it’s Robin’s relationship with Sister Brigid that drives his final story to its soulful conclusion, it’s the unexpected friendship between the outlaw and the cautious Leper that has the greatest impact. A quiet conversation between the pair comes barbed with soul-shattering revelations, one that irrevocably alters Robin’s outlook while serving as one of the bolder myth revisions. Still, it’s Comer’s quiet heartbreak that yields the film’s biggest devastation.
Sarnoski depicts medieval life for all its cruelty and filth. Death is not remotely gentle in the 13th century; it’s downright nasty and vicious. Cinematographer Pat Scola captures it with startlingly dark realism and grit, but so, too, the breathtaking Northern Ireland landscape that provides this intimate tale with the scale of a sprawling epic.
The Death of Robin Hood removes the simple binary of heroes and villains, combining both into a complicated interrogation of myth itself. But the biggest magic feat is its demonstration of how myth-making and storytelling can heal even the most grievous wounds, and even provide peace if earned.
The Death of Robin Hood releases in theaters on June 19, 2026.
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