SPACE BANDITS

released OUT NOW! Publisher Image Comics

Writer Mark Millar Artist Matteo scalera

Mark Millar can usually be relied on for at least one memorable narrative hook in his comics, but his recent output has started exchanging originality for more overfamiliar concepts. It’s certainly hard not to notice that he’s following up his recent generic sci-fi crime caper Sharkey The Bounty Hunter with another generic sci-fi crime caper, and Space Bandits does little new other than crank up the violence and crude humour.

This five-issue miniseries catapults us into a confusingly ’80s-obsessed far future, where female jailbirds Cody and Thena team up to escape and get payback from the misogynistic assholes who betrayed them. Unfortunately, while the story aims for a trashy sci-fi-grindhouse revengethriller aesthetic, all we get is two-dimensional characterisation, clichéd dialogue and an obnoxiously adolescent tone that becomes grating extra-fast.

Even on his weaker series, Millar works with the best comic artists in the business, and Matteo Scalera makes every page ravishing to look at, despite the regular bursts of splattery, over-the-top gore and tasteless gags. Millar is leaning into his worst excesses here, and while Space Bandits is slickly executed, with some imaginative world-building, the edgelord humour combined with a severe lack of charm make it barely even worth getting angry at. Saxon Bullock