COMIC REVIEW: FTN reviews Powerpuff Girls #8

Written by: Derek Charm

Art by: Derek Charm

Lettering by: Neil Uyetake

Published by: IDW Publishing

Growing up I watched the Powerpuff Girls TV show, and many other cartoons on Cartoon Network religiously, and when IDW announced the Powerpuff Girls were getting their own comic series last year I was beyond excited. I read every issue and I even read it with the voices of the characters in my head. This may be a comic marketed for kids but I’m a kid at heart and this issue of the series was especially amazing to me.

It is the conclusion to last months comic where a monster from Monster Island named Steve declared that day to be “Monster Day” and all the monsters invaded the city of Townsville tearing things up and just making a huge mess. The Powerpuff girls showed up to put a stop to things, but many hours later they started getting a little tired which made them kind of sloppy so they had a meeting with Steve and decided that it was only one day and the town could rebuild. For the first time in my memory the Powerpuff Girls picked up their crime fighting ball and went home.

Fast forward to present times and it’s 9 hours later and monsters are still destroying the town. It is all over the news and the Professor is concerned with what is happening to the town, and why the girls are not out there trying to stop it. He goes up to their room to find them moping in defeat and definitely not their usual selves. What happens next is something that would make any fan of superheroes and crime fighting die a little on the inside, the Powerpuff Girls told the Professor that they have always been losers and they weren’t good enough to defeat the monsters taking over the city. This brings tears to the Professors eyes and he gives the girls an encouraging pep talk before walking out of the room. This is just what the girls need to get back to the swing of things. They have no idea how they will manage to beat all the monsters but Bubbles has an idea that might just work.

While the girls are brainstorming the monsters are terrorizing. Before it was just wrecking things and sending fear into the citizens, but now they have decided that at sun down head monster Steve will eat the mayor as a big finish. Monster Day may just last for 24 hours but eating the mayor of Townsville will be a little more permanent so hopefully the girls find a way to stop these destructive creatures.

Back at the Professor’s lab Bubbles has come up with a plan that just might work in defeating the monsters, and ironically enough it involves the help of some spare villain robot parts the police have in their evidence room. With the parental supervision of the Professor the girls turn a microchip from MoJo JoJo’s robot mind control (past arc in the comic) into a “Bubbles Chip” which can transmit signals to all robots, by simply being inserted into a single one. After finding JoJo’s abandoned robot army and preparing them for battle, the fight is on and the girls are back in action. Working together with the robots, the monsters are defeated and retreat back to Monster Island where they came from. And in an ending that I didn’t see coming the monsters cheer monster leader Steve instead of exile him for the loss to the robots. I guess monsters enjoy some good sparring every now and then.

This issue for me was pure magic. It shows that not everyone is perfect all the time, not even the uber-cute Powerpuff Girls, and that even if you fail you can always try again to get the result you intended. Even Steve the monster learned that just because he didn’t succeed at eating the mayor doesn’t mean that his new holiday was a bust. Monsters enjoy fighting robots way more than watching someone be eaten. There are many ways to achieve happiness, you just have to try new things and see what works best for you. This was one of the few “superhero” comics I have read where everyone really did end up happy in the end. The villains lost the battle but still had fun, didn’t turn against each other and will more than likely plan the same “Monster Day” holiday next year. Derek Charm does an excellent job with this series, the characters personalities are spot on the artwork is true to the show and it’s a fun book that also teaches its reader things while entertaining them.

5 out of 5 nerds