‘Henchgirl’ #1-6 Comic Review

created by Kristen Gudsnuk

Henching is rough, and it’s typically a pretty thankless role that gets perpetually relegated to the background of superhero narratives. After all, superhero stories have traditionally been just about that: superheroes. However, contemporary media has recently seen an uptick of stories focusing on all the little guys in the background, like Agents of Shield, The Venture Brothers, or the topic of today’s review, Henchgirl.

Henchgirl follows the life and work of Mary Posa, a member of Monsieur Butterfly’s Butterfly Gang. Outside of her job henching for M. Butterfly, Mary has a more or less normal(-ish) home life. She lives with two roommates, Tina and Sue, who are totally okay with Mary’s chosen profession (or at least tolerate it, as in Sue’s case) and isn’t actually evil by standard definition. I won’t go into why she’s chosen to be a henchgirl (as that would be incredibly spoiler-ific), but let’s just say that being a bad guy isn’t really Mary’s natural state of being.

Issue #1 starts out with Mary, her fellow henchgirl Coco Oon, and their boss in the middle of a post-bank heist confrontation with their nemesis, Mr. Great Guy. Mary is sitting in the driver’s seat of the Butterfly Buggie while Coco loads the money in the trunk, and M. Butterfly banters with the hero. The heist goes south fast, though, and Mr. Great Guy blows up the car. By some miracle, Mary survives and skulks away, narrowly avoiding the cops. She is severely injured, though, and passes out on a pile of trash. When she awakens, she finds herself being carried by some random do-gooder dressed in what appears to be a nutcracker costume (we later find out his name is Fred and he is a small-time hero that goes by “Mannequin”). Mary convinces him to take her home, instead of to the hospital, and thus begins the unconventional friendship (possibly relationship…?) of Fred and Mary.

Henchgirl issue 1 final file-6

The comic progresses on, showing us more of Mary’s daily life. Sue gets Mary a legit job interview (Mary is so exhausted from working the night before that she falls asleep during the interview). Mary meets with the rest of the Butterfly Gang as M. Butterfly announces the Employee of the Week (it’s Coco, like always), and they try to come up with new criminal exploits (and we learn that Coco is seriously the worst kind of person). The city is attacked by aliens (and we learn that Mr. Great Guy does not handle loss well at all).

The tone of Henchgirl ranges from general parody to somewhat farcical, and you know what? It works. I’m not always a fan of farce, but Henchgirl has these really subtle moments of sheer ridiculousness I found downright hilarious. One criticism I have, though, is that at times the narrative seems a bit choppy. The progression of events sometimes jumps abruptly from one moment to another with little or no transition. At times this works well for the comedy of the piece, but it can also come off as just a little jarring.

Henchgirl Issue 4 final file-4

Henchgirl’s artwork is kind of like a cross between Scott Pilgrim and maybe Lumberjanes, and I thought it complimented the story well. It’s done in full color, and the characters have a cartoon-y fluidness to them without resorting to any “chibi”-like dramatic shifts in their proportions to denote extreme emotion.

Overall, I really, really enjoyed Henchgirl, and the fact that issue #6 ends on a big cliffhanger drove me nuts until I discovered it’s also published online as a webcomic. Regardless, you should still go and purchase copies of the comic because it’s definitely worth it. I recommend it to fans of superhero comedy and parody/satire.

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