Bionic Woman #6 Review


The final issue in the opening arc for the Bionic Woman, this issue sees a decent portrayal of Jaime Sommers as the first arc, which introduces many readers to the character, finishes up.

First the official description from Dynamite:

There’s blood on the streets when Jaime Sommers makes her last stand against the Mission, but whose blood has been spilled, and what will it mean to the Bionic Woman’s future? And… even if Jaime can survive the Mission, even if her friends live through the day, even if OSI doesn’t draw her back into the net, there’s a new army just waiting for the Bionic Woman, an army of sophisticated robots disguised as women! An army called… the Fembots!

As the closing of the first arc, the focus is still really all on Jaime. The series has done its best to portray her a dangerous character, someone not as perfectly aligned as Steve Austin. Thankfully, the dialogue in this issue, specifically Jaime’s, is quite good to this effect. The issue explores more of her ethical dilemmas, portraying her as a good but ultimately troubled character.

As such, this issue mainly focuses on the one fight. With the well written dialogue, this is perhaps the most engaging fight in Bionic Woman so far. This is partially because the issue gives it a decent focus, both in terms of timing and the art work. The art is clear and distinct, whilst the narrative focuses solely on the fight at hand, giving it the time and pacing it needs to wrap up.

Despite all this, it does still feel that the series is trying to hard at times. It certainly plays up the gender aspects far too much. Given that the main cast are two women, and that the bad guys are almost all male, the introduction of “fembots” seems to be a bit too much of a push in this direction. This issue proves Jaime as a character more deep than her gender, but the title seems to be countering this with gimmicks such as fembots.

So, whilst the depiction and portrayal of Jaime has finally reached a point where it can work past the simple sexual portrayal, the rest of the series doesn’t seem to be keeping up. With this in mind, the next few issues will certainly be interesting.

S#!T Talking Central