The Gotham City Sirens’ latest adventure Unfit for Orbit has been a surprisingly fun ride so far, but when I realized it was a five-issue miniseries and not a three-issue one (midway in writing my previous review, for all of you who wonder how the magic happens), I did have a slight worry that we’d get to a point in the story where there would be some drag. The first two issues were zippy fun that kept the momentum going at a great pace. As a three-issue story, that would be great! But at five, it could start to burn out, and while the third installment of Harley, Ivy, and Catwoman’s heist isn’t a huge drop off in quality, it’s definitely an issue where you can feel the brakes being pulled up to stretch out the story a bit to fit the issue count.
The three Sirens are all split up in Lunaria, each trying to figure out just what is going on in this nightclub turned spaceship. Ivy is stuck in the engine room, where the small Kalanug creatures jump into the open engines Lemmings-style to provide fuel, and occasionally are resurrected as Junior Desperos. Catwoman is surrounded by a bunch of Despero’s goons, and needs to make a daring escape since she knows there’s no way she can make it out alive. And Harley? Harley’s stuck in a giant globe above the dance floor, where the music is drowning out her cries for help. Not the best spot for our ladies to be stuck in!
Leah Williams’ strong characterizations of the team members takes a backseat here to move the plot along. While there’s still some fun moments to be had, the book definitely takes a hit when the titular Sirens aren’t together, and the central mystery behind the ship is pretty much solved from the beginning of the issue. The previous cliffhanger made it seem like the patrons of Lunaria were going to be the fuel, but it’s actually these little Kalanug guys. Unless there’s another reveal coming around the corner, it’s a reveal that takes a little bit of the dramatic tension away, as we don’t really know much about these creatures other than the fact that they were fighting the Sirens in the previous issue. The Conduit, the mysterious child that Catwoman thought was an artifact, is also barely in this issue, which is a little strange after spending so much time with it previously. Losing out on that aspect of the story, and splitting the Sirens up makes for an issue that isn’t nearly as engaging as the previous two were, and feels like we’re just running the page count down. This pacing issue here isn’t something I’m too concerned of just yet as the book definitely needs to get the rest of the story in motion, but there’s a big loss to the fun of the book by splitting up the team.
DC
Luckily for us, the decrease in dialogue means we get more room for Haining to shine. Haining’s art is the real showcase here, with some really fun and dynamic set pieces. The whole sequence with Harley trying to communicate with the DJ on the dance floor is fantastic, and Haining gets a lot of mileage out of being able to do whatever they can think of to convey’s Harley frantic mannerisms. The same goes for Catwoman’s daring escape from Despero’s forces. If the writing dipped a little here, Haining makes sure the art picks up the slack for it. I won’t be surprised if they get more opportunities from DC in the future.
While Unfit For Orbit‘s third issue is a slight dip in quality from the first two issues, it’s one I was kind of expecting. As fun as the previous issues were, I was wondering if there was going to be a big info dump coming, and while issue three doesn’t go that far, it does slow the pace down considerably from what was set up in the previous issues. It’s a big letdown to get this kind of issue after two that were a lot of fun and pretty much everything I look for in a comic these days. That being said, with this out of the way, I’m hopeful that the rest of the series will rebound nicely, since there’s not a lot of a runway left for the ladies to take off.
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