Bitch Planet: Triple Feature

The first volume of “Bitch Planet” set up a rousing sports prision story in a future where women were systematically oppressed and the goal was to overthrow the patriarchy.  Vol. 2 said nuts to that premise and set about starting the revolution now. Proper setup be damned! Now we have a third volume of this series that doesn’t look to continue the main story at all.  “Bitch Planet: Triple Feature” is an anthology series featuring stories set in the world created by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as around here there’s precedent for a good anthology getting a series back on track after an underwhelming second volume.

That’s not what we have here, though.  All of the stories in “Triple Feature” have one thing on their mind:  Showing us how much it sucks to be a woman, a minority, or both in this world.  The problem is that this was abundantly obvious in the first two volumes and hammering the same point home over and over again through fifteen stories inspires boredom rather than sadness or anger at the situations the characters in these stories find themselves in.  It doesn’t help that after just two volumes “Bitch Planet’s” world doesn’t feel fleshed out enough to warrant this kind of exploration from other creators. The wildly varying tones and settings for these stories feel like their own things rather than a part of the world they’re supposed to be fleshing out.

There’s some really great art to be seen in these stories and that’s about the best thing I can say about this collection.  “Triple Feature” was clearly made to give the main series some visibility while DeConnick and De Landro took their time in order to get it back on track.  After reading this I’m left wondering if I should even bother when they finally get around to making vol. 3.