Fight Girls #1 - Review

Written & Illustrated by: Frank Cho

Colors by: Sabine Rich

Letters by: Sal Cipriano

Published by: AWA Upshot

It’s not often I’ll mention the editorial found within a comic in a review, but Alex Alonso’s “Ax to Grind” at the back of Fight Girls perfectly sums up a feeling I didn’t realize I had when reading this issue: this is pure pulp from a creator who has made a living off of the pulpiness of his work. 

Disclaimer: I’ve been a fan of Frank Cho ever since I discovered his Liberty Meadows series 15 or so years ago. I bought up all the collected volumes as his art is second to none. And when buying a book made by Cho, you can be excused if you are buying it strictly for the art. However, he is capable of being more than just the artist - as his aforementioned Liberty Meadows was a lot of fun to read as well. 

Having said that, Fight Girls is exactly what you’d expect from Cho, but with enough added to the story to make the purchase worthwhile. The story revolves around 10 contestants vying to become the next queen of the galaxy. The set-up is pretty simple - I mean, it’s right there on the cover - and how Cho presents it is not that bad. It’s essentially a survival of the fittest with the first issue having the 10 women race through a wild jungle to rack up points to be first. It appears this is a multi-stage event where the most points win, but these are details that are developed in this particular issue and a minor quibble at best. 

If the series stayed with this premise alone, I’m not sure if it would have kept my attention, but Cho adds a few wrinkles to keep me intrigued to see what came next. 

For the art, Cho really flexes his muscles and provides some of the most beautiful creatures on a page. If you’ve followed Cho’s career, you’ll know that he appears to like his prehistoric creatures (see: Shanna the She-Devil), so it is no surprise that he makes the setting for the first issue a prehistoric style planet and introduces quite a few creatures at that. The line work is amazing, but you have to give credit to colorist Sabine Rich for making every page pop. The choice of a softer, green / brown color palette really elevates Cho’s pencils throughout the issue. 

I do have a minor quibble though with the art, which surprises even me - as it is a cast of 10 women competing, they are a little “samey”, their only really distinctive features  being their hair-styles and one of the women wearing an eye patch. It’s good that Cho does a roll call both at the beginning and end of the issue, as I didn’t feel the women were distinctive enough to recall who was who - with the exception of the one with the eye-patch. 

All in all, this was a fun issue that Alonso summarized quite nicely as being “pulpy” - a favorite genre of mine. With some minor quibbles aside, Cho presented enough to bring me back for a second issue.