Shawn Reviews Danger Doll Squad: Galactic Gladiators

I had been anticipating the upcoming upcoming Danger Doll Squad Galactic Gladiators crossover event from Action Lab Comics for months. Since the first Danger Doll Squad crossover was a fun action packed story I was hoping that Galactic Gladiators would be just as entertaining. Unfortunately, the covers tell a  better story than what Action Lab presented in this Clustur Fukur of a 4-issue crossover event.

Danger Doll Squad: Galactic Gladiators takes place after the first Danger Doll Squad team up. After defeating the bad guys Zombie Tramp, DollFace, and Vampblade are on their way back from The Black Room when they’re intercepted by a mysterious alien spaceship that looks like the old Milton Bradley Simon game. That game takes them across space to the Vadim Galaxy and Batau Ceti 16 where Queen Amalgma places the Danger Dolls minds in a cloned body that merges all their powers together. I felt that was a cop-out because from what we saw on the covers I thought we were going to see the Danger Dolls using their powers to take on Aliens in one-on-one combat as they tried to escape the planet.

WE SHOULDA GOT THIS FIGHT!

After defeating the monsters (Two of which look like Ookla the Mok from Thundarr, The Barbarian and Bug From Micronauts) The amalgamated Danger Doll monster is named Clustur Fukur by Queen Amalgmam. And that’s when this story starts to go from a promising premise to a complete clusterfuck of a miniseries. As the story progresses We get more convoluted combat sequences, more 1980s references most Gen-Y and millenials wouldn’t understand, and a story that just falls completely short of the promising premise presented on those awesome covers for this mini-series.  

After reading the final issue of Danger Doll Squad: Galactic Gladiators I was disappointed. There was so much potential for a great story in this miniseries. Unfortunately Martin and Mendoza just can’t execute on the great concept they set up for this comic. I’m guessing that Dan Mendoza and Jason Martin wanted to get this event out of the way so they could focus on the Death of Zombie Tramp event. Big Mistake. The way I see it they should have written this one to take place after Zombie Tramp #50. If they made this story the event after Zombie Tramp #50 it could have been a great way to transition into Janey’s return and possible redemption after the events of the Death of Zombie Tramp storyline. 

WE SHOULDA GOT THESE COSTUMES!

Thanks to Martin and Mendoza pushing the Death of Zombie Tramp event over Galactic Gladiators, the writing in Danger Doll Squad: Galactic Gladiators feels rushed and convoluted. And thanks to Martin and Mendoza rushing it, they just don’t actualize the story’s potential. The storyline for Galactic Gladiators doesn’t flow as organically as the original Danger Doll team-up and most of the characters in Galactic Gladiators are one-dimensional with none of the personality or “Voice” the Action Lab girls have in their own comics.

With the incredible amount of talent, skill and craftsmanship Jason Martin and Dan Mendoza have shown with Zombie Tramp, Dollface, and Vamplabde, I would have like to have seen them take this premise to another level. Take some time to build up the world of Batau Ceti 16. Show us some of the Aliens. Show us the culture of this Alien World. And show us why Queen Amalgama would be a threat to Earth that the combined forces of Zombie Tramp, Vampblade, and Dollface would need to overcome.

And I’d like to have seen Mendoza and Martin really take a minute to develop their own characters and show them using their powers in creative ways. I wanted to see how Janey would have been able to get out of a jam where her magic wouldn’t work on aliens. And I wanted to see if she have been able to possess alien bodies they way she did humans. Or what would Katie would do if she were away from those alien vampires she fed on for a long time. Could Dollface adapt alien tech into her arsenal or interface with alien computers. The miniseires issues should have given us the answers to these questions as they took on the Klustur Fukur.

With the story presented Mendoza and Martin told too much and showed too little. Galactic Gladiators should have been a visual FEAST filled with fantastic imagery and unique designs, not off the shelf aliens and spaceships from the 1980s and references only a 44-year-old like myself would figure out. In 2018 most new readers wouldn’t know about half the stuff Katie and Janey were talking about or what references were made in this story. This story should have been a SHOWCASE for Mendoza and Martin to show how they could put their own fingerprint on a comic, but they just didn’t push the envelope creatively like they should have. Had it been me writing this story and making the designs, I’d have gone ALL OUT and put a FRESH take on alien gladiators that’d have put the stuff in Thor: Ragnarok to shame.

Danger Doll Squad: Galactic Gladiators had an incredibly solid premise and a strong concept. Unfortunately, the rushed and convoluted storytelling and one-dimensional characterizations prevented it from being the great comic it should have been. If Martin and Mendoza had just taken a few more months to flesh this story out in rewrites, Action Lab’s Danger Zone could have had a CLASSIC on the level of Marvel’s Secret Wars. But what they presented in these four issues is sadly, just a clustur fukur most comic fans should just pass by.