*Warning: Review contains spoilers!
As a long time creator-owned writer of Image Comics, Kurtis Wiebe (Peter Panzerfaust, Rat Queens) presents his first work with Dark Horse Comics: Bounty. It’s a story about a ragtag sister duo, Nina and Georgie, notorious criminals who’ve become bounty hunters for the betterment of their livelihood. With art provided by pop-comic sensation, Mindy Lee, Bounty is an ecstatic and fun caper tale, filled with action-packed adventure.
The story jumps right into the capture of the galaxy’s highest-profile criminals, Nina and Georgie, by the clever and resourceful, Indra. During the interrogation he tries to get the passcode to their data store, which would expose all of their criminal secrets. With Georgie letting him know that it’ll take a thousand years to hack the encryption, Indra threatens her with physical violence. Nina however breaks and gives up the passcode.
Upon receiving the passcode, Indra tortures Georgie and Nina reacts furiously, breaks out of her bonds and lashes out at Indra and his guardsmen. This scene demonstrates and establishes the sisterly love between Nina and Georgie perfectly. A series of action panels commence as Nina engages the guardsmen and ultimately, frees Georgie from their grasp. However with all the data from their system already uploaded by Regal Corp and being broadcasted to the media association, they are advised by their tech support friend, Viv to wipe out everything. This is the plot point in which their new story begins.
The story then jumps forward a few years later right into a bounty hunting job with Nina, Georgie, Viv and Georgie’s husband, Alan. Bounty’s storytelling keeps the pacing energetic as we find our protagonists always on the move and writer Kurtis Wiebe succeeds in keeping readers on their toes. Weibe also clearly understands his characters and weaves their individual personalities together to create some good chemistry between them.
During the second act, we see Viv infiltrate a giant mechanized door guard from within. The way that this is illustrated is quite imaginative and unconventional. We see Viv immerse herself in an aquatic universe resembling the door guard’s mind and she is able to digitally occupy him in order for her teammates, Nina and Alan, to easily slip past him. Meanwhile, Georgie is acting as tech support and gives the green light to Nina and Alan to engage their target. Another series of action panels commence, this time with a little bit of light banter between Nina and Alan. The interaction between all of the characters show that they are one big family and are able to make things light and fun during serious situations.
At the end of the scene, after all the bodyguards are defeated, Nina and Alan confront their target, Anson Vasorjat. But before he is apprehended, he takes out his phone and records Nina momentarily while saying the phrase “Valiski’s. Vodka, lemon twist”. This catches Nina off guard and forces Alan to knock Anson out.
The third act features more interaction between all four characters as they travel to collect their bounty. Weibe displays an ability to create likeable characters that engage in natural and fun conversation. But just as everything was going their way, the protagonists soon find out that the contractor dropped the bounty on Anson thus making him financially worthless to claim. While Nina expresses her disappointment in the form of punching Anson in the face, Georgie is bummed out and accepts another job – this time the stakes are higher as the target is more dangerous but attached with a higher reward. The issue ends revealing who the recorded file was sent to: The Sovereign. Mentioned beforehand, The Sovereign is a popular and skillful bounty hunter whom Alan sees as his rightful competition and nemesis. This cliffhanger implies that The Sovereign will soon be targeting Nina, which will inevitably lead into a confrontation between him and Alan.
Overall, Bounty #1 is very fast-paced with good storytelling and art. Weibe knows exactly where he wants the story to go and Mindy Lee’s interior artwork is very reminiscent of Babs Tarr (Batgirl) and Annie Wu’s (Black Canary) style of drawing. Both of those books have strong female leads that are proficient in hand-to-hand combat and are stylishly animated with bright colouring – typically serving the young female readership. Both Weibe and Lee know and understand their target demographic and with Bounty have created a fresh new story with new female characters to reach them.
