Big Girls #2 Review: A Superlative Sci-Fi Accomplishment

In a future that's far too close, a megaorganism infection affects some children, making them grow hundreds of feet tall. The boys are becoming seemingly mindless, mutated monsters that barely resemble humanoids called "Jacks." The women, who grow tall but look (proportionately) normal, protect the remains of human society from the monstrous boys in a dystopian science fiction vision that comes fully formed from the mind of Jason Howard.

 

Big Girls #2 takes everything that went well in the debut issue and (if you'll pardon the pun) supersizes it. You get more of the titular characters, a big surprise for the "Jacks" they face, and great detail given to the characters. For example, we meet the storied Apex, a CCH Pounder-styled senior member of this elite defense force who declares, "Remember, you're a soldier, they're the enemy. Nothing else matters." The High Marshall, charged with the safety of all, grimly makes hard choices that reveal (again) what he's willing to do in order to protect his charge.

The most impressive thing here is that Jason Howard has drawn and devised every idea, every line, every word of this brilliance. For a singular creator — like Livio Ramondelli did recently with Kill Lock — to have come up with all this and executed it at such a high level of production values is really amazing. The grim determination from Apex and High Marshall Tannik is fantastic, and Apex's nickname for Ember, the focal point of the last issue, shows a lot about her relationship with everyone around her.

The development of Gulliver as an antagonist in the Smashland, an area of urban ruins outside of this Preserve, furthermore shows that the Big Girls may be caught between equally ruthless forces. There are a number of questions unanswered, but the stuff that's going on is more than enough to keep the reader engaged.

Big Girls #2 is a superlative sci-fi accomplishment that's well worth your time and money. RATING: BUY.

BIG GIRLS #2
(W) Jason Howard (A/CA) Jason Howard
With the Preserve threatened by monsters, can even the great Apex make a difference? As Ember faces her worst fear, Gulliver shares a secret, and Martin makes a decision.