BITCH PLANET #5 is finally here after a lot of waiting, and it is time to actually start playing Megaton. How will it turn out? Let’s look at the issue to find out! (Okay I’m sorry for slightly breaking format, but I’m actually freaking out cause this issue was really good. Everyone must know this up front. I am in love with this issue and comic run, which you would know if you watched this video or listened to this podcast.)
BITCH PLANET #5 by kellysue and valentinedelandro
Anyway, the comic begins back on Earth where the news outlets are buzzing about the second chance all of the NC’s have been given. This second chance is the chance to play Megaton with the men. Because of this plan a new stadium needs to be built, which the father is shown to be taking care of. Meanwhile, the NC’s of Bitch Planet get a chance to take place in their own scrimmage against the guards of Bitch Planet. This violent and unfair scrimmage is cut against the Father back on Earth blackmailing an architect into going to the area where the Megaton game will be played in order to see someone he knows who was sent to Bitch Planet.
Okay, that is just a basic plot summary, but first of all I have to say that there is a lot of information in this book: character beats, overarching plot, foreshadowing, and world building. It all exists within the span of 20 pages, which is a feat just within itself. Something amazing about the first run of fives issues is that BITCH PLANET has never lost site of what it is. It always delivers the same extremely gratifying punches. For example, this issue begins with a female newscaster telling the story of “An uplifting opportunity, lost girls given a second chance.” So many things are communicated in that small statement. It mimics the way that the news takes unsavory stories, and turns them into uplifting and easily digested narratives. First of all, the women of Bitch Planet are women, not girls. Second, they’re not “lost girls.” These women were put into jail for offenses that range from gross obesity to seduction and disappointment. Society has placed them there for bull shit reasons, but yet the news paints it as a lovely understory about some cute girls that just happened to lose their way. That happens today in society, and in that little moment that occurred in the third panel of this fifth comic I was already hooked.