Jenny Zero vol. 1: Her Father’s Shadow

Jenny Tetsuo used to enjoy following in the footsteps of her father.  Mega Commander Zero was the pride of the Action Science Police, the world’s foremost specialists on fighting the kaiju threat which continues to the present day.  Then things went bad, she washed out of the force, and now spends her days getting loaded and living the “celebutante” life with her best friend and hotel heiress Dana Sheratin.  Jenny Zero, as she’s dubbed by the press, is enjoying herself, up until the point her former superior officer, Fujimoto, walks back into her life.  It turns out that the kaiju are now spreading their attacks around the globe and the A.S.P. needs her help to fend off this widening threat.  Whether it’s the alcohol, drugs, or her own feelings of “Why the hell not?” Jenny agrees and she’s back in the fighting business.  Just in time to find out the secret that Fujimoto has been keeping from her for her whole life.

That secret changes the whole direction of this miniseries, which had done a good job of presenting its title character as someone who was clearly tired of being judged by those around her.  It’s a sentiment that’s reinforced throughout the rest of the story as Jenny continues to do things on her own terms, which is something that’s pretty entertaining to watch as she’s a clear break from the kind of protagonists we’ve seen in similar stories.  Co-writers Dave Dwonch and Brockton McKinney also show themselves to be familiar with the expectations a reader familiar with such stories may have and do their best to either subvert them, or have a laugh or two at their expense.  They’re not always successful, but Jenny’s irreverence enlivens the proceedings as a whole.

Magenta King provides the art, and while I’m not familiar with her, she does some excellent work here.  She makes Jenny a convincing party girl in her earliest scenes, but is still able to portray her as a capable commando later on.  This is to say nothing of how she manages to sell the story’s big twist and the epic-level battles that crop up afterward.  King delivers the goods, and I’m glad to see that she’ll be sticking around for the next volume with Dwonch and McKinney.  The existence of which is a good thing because this volume ends with a massive cliffhanger which doesn’t wrap anything up.  It does, at least, leave me wanting to read vol. 2.