PLAINER JANE #3, from Broken Face Comics on Kickstarter, follows Jane as she takes a caregiver internship to appease her parents while her blossoming career as a contract killer acquires repeat customers.
The Details
- Written By: David Wilburn
- Art By: Wayne Lowden
- Colors By: Ralf Singh
- Letters By: Tim West
- Cover Art By: Ralf Singh
- Cover Price: $6.25
- Release Date: August 2021 (estimated)
Was It Good?
PLAINER JANE #3 is another fascinating entry in the indie series that evolves Jane’s career as a contract killer into new and increasingly dangerous directions. We like the story, and Jane’s evolution is a point of fascination, but this issue has a shortcoming.
The absolute winning aspect of this issue is the tense, dramatic situation Jane finds herself in when she acquires a repeat customer, a customer who hires Jane to take out select mob figures. It’s unclear if Jane knows who she’s killing or why, and a great deal of fun comes from watching Jane unwittingly entangle herself in nasty business with potentially dire consequences.
Lowden’s art creates an amusing contrast with a light, airy presentation surrounding a non-descript high school girl who acts as a brutal, sociopathic killer. The contrast between style and content in a comic is usually a problem, but here, it highlights the surreality of Jane’s character to the comic’s benefit.
The low point of this comic is the same criticism we pointed out in issue #2. There’s too much time spent (nearly ten pages) with Jane and her friend chitchatting about mundane topics before getting to the meat of the story. On the one hand, you could make the case that the idle chitchat reinforces the plainness of Jane’s “normal” life, but on the other, this issue lightly crosses the line between reinforcement and wasting space.
Once the story gets going, you’re hooked, and Jane’s latest assassination assignment is exactly why this series is so interesting. This issue is a winner, but the series would benefit from focusing pages on the core plot.
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What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
Catch up with how the pressures of “normal” life coaxed Jane into a caregiver internship by reading our PLAINER JANE #2 review.
We begin with Jane lamenting a few pounds of weight gain since she started working as a caregiver in the Machester Infirmary Hospital. Taking urine samples and cleaning up bodily fluids isn’t fun, but she keeps the job to prevent increasing pressure from friends and family about making a career choice.
Later, news reports of murder are rising, and the deaths may be early signs of an impending mob war in the city. We soon learn Jane is responsible for some of those deaths.
We conclude the issue with an awkward mob meeting, a contract assignment that needs to be postponed for sexy reasons, and multiple ultimatums.
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Final Thoughts
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PLAINER JANE #3 is another solid entry in the series about a school girl developing into an expert contract killer. The unassuming art intentionally keeps you off guard for the moments when Jane commits unspeakable acts of violence, and the evolution of Jane’s life feels like conflicting magnetic poles that eventually will rip her apart. That said, too many pages are dedicated to idle fluff, so you may feel like you’re not getting a full chapter for the price.
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