Boom! Studios 2017
Written by Kurt Sutter & Courtney Alameda
Illustrated by Hyeonjin Kim
Coloured by Jean-Paul Csuka
Lettered by Jim Campbell
By day, Dominique, Greta, Misha, and Sarah run a nonprofit women's shelter. At night, they each don a nun's habit and move through Los Angeles hunting down violent abusers who have escaped justice. Their increasingly public vigilantism has earned them the nickname Sisters of Sorrow, and has drawn the ire of L.A.'s notorious anti-crime task force.
Kudos to Kurt and Courtney for bringing this subject to life in comics form. Battered women are the subject of Law & Order episodes and that’s how most people relate to the subject. We don’t always realise, think about or know how the men who treat women this way make their abusers feel and to see it on the page like this is pretty powerful stuff. To start this issue off with a prime example of a man looking for his wife to take her home and the length’s he’s willing to go to to reclaim his property, because in all reality that’s what he’s doing and how he’s acting, is scary as hell.
I think the concept here is well presented in this premiere. I mean this dude and his actions set off a chain reaction that makes me see how those women who run the shelter get fed up and take justice into their own hands. It would very much be something I could see the Huntress taking on so it has that element to it and it’s fantastic to see in my opinion. Also by the same token for the police to see the actions of the Sisters of Sorrow as what it is, something to be shut down, vigilantism that’s no better than criminal action is right in line with the laws of the country.
The interiors here are superbly done. I love the way this husband is portrayed as this angry out of control man, the women scared and helpless or frustrated. The emotions we get from this work is so spot on it’s scary. The use of page layouts through their angles and perspective are extremely well utilised as are the backgrounds we see here. They do wonders to show us the bigger picture and keep reminding us where this is taking place.
While I may not condone taking the law into your own hands there are extenuating circumstances here. These women have suffered brutally at the hands of men and they have reached and passed that breaking point. So I like that they take the steps to never be a victim again. The self defense classes, the education of things and then the shooting range and all in the premise of protecting themselves. So that moment hey took it too far and sought revenge for actions well that’s where the gray area begins.
I love that this book makes you think. It makes you see beyond what’s on the page and challenges how you see things. Right or wrong is subject to the individual and their experiences and no one unless they’ve lived through the terror of an abusive relationship can tell you how to feel or act, even then each one is different. So that we are seeing this with such a stark brutality to it is amazing to me. It’s powerful and scary and that’s the way it should be.