Babylon Working #4 is a comic created by Marcel Dupree & Joshua Metzger with art by Mannix Francisco. An old man finally gets the power he’s dreamed of and a woman receives power she never wanted. This issue excitingly closes one part of the story and heightens the want for another. The main characters are a team of space pirates who are all women and for whom things have gone extremely awry. This consists of a black woman, a white woman, a dog woman, a robot woman, and a racially ambiguous woman with a Mohawk. There is also a background character that becomes very important in the grand scheme of things. The plot here is very layered, we have some of our ladies in immediate danger, some trying to save each other, and an old man on top of the world. This is an action-filled issue with big blasts and close-up violence; with way more choking than I expected to see( I didn’t expect any). The dialogue is mostly precise and to the point and is very present and witty. No page is wordy and pretty much all of it sounds realistic. This is a good issue that brings a conclusion to one storyline while leaving enough threads to weave another.

            The art here has the strategic use of shadows paired with thick lines and an overall smoothness. The colors here are done very well as the more fantastical elements have tones that make it easier for you to picture them in real life. There is really only one location in this issue; either you’re on top of this skyscraper or on the ground below. This is a very expressive comic from the bodies to the faces. Faces are drawn with so many details that they look more alive and they physically react to what is going on so they don’t seem like wooden actors. Face sameness is not a problem here thanks to the aforementioned facial details. We get a wide array of body types here due to some characters having robotic parts and others just not being human. The creatures toe a line between otherworldly and straight up being a kaiju. This is a futuristic sci-fi tale so there are tons of laser weapons, projectile weapons, and supernatural blasts. That last one might not fit the same as the others. The action here has great scene flow and gets gory almost off the bat. Bloody, hard-hitting, and gruesome is what you’ll get here. Some of the pirate ladies wear less-functional/more-sexy outfits but like in Star Wars, if all the guns are lasers it doesn’t matter what you wear. Besides the outfits none of the women in this comic are in-world sexualized.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like women-led science fiction stories taking place in space showcasing supernatural beasts and chicanery with those same leading women being criminals and fighting for their lives this is for you.

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

R. This gets bloody real fast and doesn’t let up too much.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“You really thought you were something.”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1866329195/babylon-working-4/description

Indiegogo Link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/babylon-working-4/x/26236710#/

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

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 26

Violent Pages: 11, for 42% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 1, for 4% of the comic

 

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

 

Violence Level – 4

“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 – 4

“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 – 3

“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.”