Babylon Working #5 is a comic with story by Marcel Dupree and Joshua Metzger with art by Mannix Francisco and colors by Chuck Obach. These lady space pirates must adjust to their new life in prison. This is a science fiction comic with prison drama, escape plans, and a team of determined women. This team has: a shapeshifter named Nuru, an anthropomorphic animal woman named Kitsune, a woman with a blue Mohawk named Tessa, an 8ft(at least) robot named Qian, and a white woman whose name I don’t think has been mentioned yet this series. The story begins with these ladies stepping off of the ship, hitting the showers, and receiving their prison clothes. Afterwards while in the cafeteria they start planning their escape, as the tension between two major gangs is starting to reach a boiling point. This takes place in a world where speedy space travel happens and non-human creatures are not out of the ordinary. The violence here is bloody and lightly gruesome. This moves at a steady pace with a futuristic science fiction tone. There are many violently intense moments with underlying drama and desperation. The dialogue is conversational with quick retorts and aggression. There are no word-heavy pages here. This is an exciting issue that has these main characters take a bit of a detour before they continue their dangerous trek towards the conclusion of this series.

            The art here is drawn in a smoothly detailed solid style with thickish outlines and strong lighting and shading. The color palette here is very sci-fi with cool blues and silvers as well as prison orange and other splashes. This takes place in a floating prison facility that sits above a body of water. There is a cafeteria, long rows of cells, a control center, and an area on top for spaceships and for prisoners to walk around. The backgrounds are almost split between showing the actual surroundings and being a gradient or fuzzy color. The expression level here is a bit below average as most of these characters maintain a hard look with little reactions. We will see aggressive emotions and fearful ones. The faces have an overall good amount of detail and show the different expressions clearly. Violence is delivered physically and with firearms. There is a substantial about of blood with light gruesomeness but no gore. The action scenes come in short bursts and they tend to have a good flow with a variety of angles. These ladies look like models with large chests and they wear skintight and revealing clothes for most of this comic.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes, if this is up your alley.

“Would I like this?”

If you like science fiction stories that star five different women and takes place in a very secure prison with violence and drama then this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

R. Violence, blood, gruesomeness, nudity.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“I don’t see any reason to stick around.”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1866329195/babylon-working-5/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 22

Violent Pages: 9, for 41% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 2, for 9% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 3

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 3

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 4

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 3

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”