Danger Girls #1-#2

People are transforming into strange creatures for no reason.
This, a dark plot to interfere with human development is being schemed resulting in freedom being lost to these insidious invaders who hide amongst us, is just the first phase of a dark master plan.
Evil is afoot, but a group of the same aliens plotting world domination have formed their own organization bent on stopping them. An organization that pits alien brother against brother, father against son… Elvis Vs. Elvis… that’s right. The aliens are… all Elvis. Thankyou… thank you very much.
The world of Dirty Pair clone franchise series takes a bizarre turn down the rabbit hole in John Malkovich’s head as we open up this little known series (compared by some as a Dirty Pair clone without actually being a Dirty Pair clone) called Danger Girls, which is this year celebrating it’s 10th Anniversary (in continued obscurity).
If you remember the title you probably remember a certain Scott Campbell (or whatever his name was) and his whole short lived fan service laden Danger Girl franchise, which was much on the pomp and little on the circumstance. Danger GirlS, pural, is not like the franchised former Image title Danger Girl (singular) as the title is more parody sci-fi than fan service drowned inept spy vs. spy yarn, which makes it charming if abit dated in it’s visual presentation.
While Danger Girls, a title by Chris Troutt and Gregory Lane, will not break any visual records (for it’s day and age of 1996) it does have a personal spunk that made it worth recommending, even if it lasted only two issues and went defunct soon after Issue #2... Just don’t expect to find any copies as this is rarer than a set of mint condition Small Favors issues… ah, yeah, I’d love to find that series… yeah.
Also the title has abit of punch with a ton of cameo appearances from lots and lots of famous (and some not so famous faces). For example of cameos…
- Beavis & Butthead are seen working the local burger establishment cash register at the start of Issue #1.
- Somebody riding one of those transformable bikes from Mospeda (aka Robotech Season 3) can be seen on Page 13 of Issue #1.
- Next page that glasses wearing guy from Macross (Robotech Season 1) shows up.
- Ryoko (Tenchi Muyo) shows up in Issue #2 (Page 2)
- Also there’s an appearance by Captain Harlock, as well as Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, Qwark and Odo from ST:DS9 (worth noting since this is the 40th Anniversary of Classic Trek) and so on.
And so on, and so forth.
The story is simple. It’s Elvis vs. Elvis alien grudge match as the evil Elvis plans to bring glory to momma by taking control of the Earth, but they’ll be all shook up and locked away for the Jailhouse Rock as they must contend with Mr. E(lvis) and his dogooding Elvises, and his two female agents Jojo and Kim, who wear a familiar looking costume design variant, live in a world of sci-fi parody, and have strange personalities.
In the first issue you meet them, and their mysterious leader Mr. E (and get the 4-1-1 on their mission). But almost to the end of Issue #1 Kim is possessed by an evil Elvis.
Issue #2 Kim manages to free herself from the Evil Elvis, and her/Jojo end up going to a space station in orbit where they have to confront a fellow Danger Girl under the power of the evil Elvises (leaving off at a cliffhanger that has never been resolved to date since the series ended so long ago).
That, by the way, is the bad thing about the series. With only two issues the story was supposed to go farther but grinds to a halt in the middle of a storyline that is never resolved. Will the evil Elvises plan succeed as they prepare to play their evil musical score of conquest? Will the evil Elvis’ plot to use their evil Danger Girl to lure the good ones away from the station under siege (part of the Evil Elvises plan) work? Will Mr. E and his lovely ladies be able to stop the Evil Elvis plot once and for all?
I wanted to ask Bruce Campbell (known at one point to be the Elvis) about his thoughts on the evil of Evil alien Elvises, and mainly for his take on being Elvis, but he didn’t answer my e-mails… nor did I send any. Really, he does respond to e-mails though which is so nice of him (thank you for being so friendly to us little people). I was, then, going to bring in Roger, the Stan Lee Experience (who is not Stan Lee but an entirely inaccurate simulation)… then I remembered he’s a prop from X-Play, and I totally hate that character anyway so, well, who cares. So let’s just wrap it up here with the breakdown.
Danger Girls Breakdown
What’s Hot?
Well, it’s (strictly as a nostalgia piece) an interesting chapter in the lifespan of Dirty Pair inspired literature. Not much of it is worth mentioning, mind you, but as far as series goes it’s a nice one.
What’s Not?
Good luck finding this though. If Mr. Lane or Mr. Troutt are still in the industry (or still have this in their records), I’d like to compel them to take it to someone like “comixpress” and reprint the series as a Graphic Novel after so many years of it being defunct. Or at least just tell me if there’s a graphic novel sitting around somewhere of this that people can still get their hands on.
Moments to Remember?
Think the above said it all.
What to Ignore?
Ten years have passed, and despite earlier mention by Mr. Lane (years ago) of wanting to maybe revive the series (with a new title, Dynamo Girls) the series seemingly never saw the light of day ever again past Issue #2, which is a shame… though I guess something to ignore since nothing can be done of it.
Overall?
Probably more as a review to make you better informed as to promote, this series is a rarer quality to find than copies of Small Favors, but if you’re out there Gregory Lane and Chris Troutt I do beg you to take this and reintroduce it once again for people to check out. And, as if to compel them, let’s give this a score.
In hopes of a revival (or maybe just them selling me the franchise so I can revive it)… I’m going to give the old school flavor of long forgotten Dirty Pair “clone” Danger Girls (plural) a four… out of 5.