A 250 word (or less) review of the first Glory trade
By Joe Keatinge and Ross Campbell, Image Comics
Glory is the second reimagining/relaunch of an old Rob
Liefeld property. The original Glory was a kind of Wonder Woman rip-off drawn
in exploitative Liefeld excess. Fortunately, Glory bears little resemblance to these
origins. In the current take Glory is the daughter of a goddess and a demon
king and was raised to be a weapon of mutually assured destruction to enforce a
truce. Instead Glory came to Earth to be a hero and, after an illustrious super
hero career, disappeared from the world. Now Riley, a young woman who inexplicably
dreams the life of Glory, has set out on a quest to find her. Glory: The Once
And Future Destroyer is basically a really good super hero comic. It’s cleverly
written and beautifully illustrated and free of continuity baggage and story
expectations. Glory is also pretty remarkable in the treatment of its female lead
characters. The super hero genre standard is for tall, busty, and thin-waisted superheroines
who frequently seem designed more to elicit teenage male hormones than to kick
ass. The character designs of Glory are radically different: Glory looks like a
bodybuilding convention reproduced with a battletank while Riley is a short,
slendor, woman of east asian descent. It’s
an approach to characterization that captures diversity of the female body, but
also speaks to Glory (the destroyer) and Riley (the fish-out-of-water) as individuals.
It also proves male creators can portray non-exploitative females. I really
enjoyed Glory and think it makes for a refreshing super hero alternative.
Word count: 249
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