Radiant Pink, Vol. 1: Across the Universe [Image Comics, 2023]

Radiant Pink, Vol. 1: Across the Universe

by

Meghan Camarena, Melissa Flores, Emma Kubert (Art)

My rating: 2 out of 5 Ω‘s

So the Radiant Black universe (the Massive-verse apparently) is now well and truly rolling and the latest entry is Pink!

With the rainbow spandex, I have to admit I first thought that this was going to be some kind of new-age Power Rangers. But so far it has been only slightly that – it is for now more like a starting version of an Avengers or Justice League with the scattered heroes each on their own early-hero-journey; only this one is colour coded.

This title follows a super-perky and lively young gamer/streamer named Eva who is using her alter-ego as a “friend of the channel” to get views and raise money for good causes and such in the middle of her superheroing. But under the surface, she is suffering from depression due to personal losses/problems and the stresses of both her hectic streamer-life and her hero-alter. Meanwhile her best friend is trying to reach her and get her to try and fix her life (which of course doesn’t happen) and at a public event, Pink gets ambushed by a mysterious woman who is engaged by some bad folks and it plays a part in messing up Pinks teleportation powers and leaves both women stuck hopping between different dimensions and unable to hop back to present-Earth.

For the most part, there is a fair bit to unpack and I can see the ambition that was probably behind most of the narrative being built in the initial couple of chapters/issues. For that I give the creative team full credit and Emma Kuberts’artwork is a bit uneven at moments but for the most part (especially in the early-going) quite solid. There is also representation with a non-white female protagonist who is also gay – I don’t give extra kudos for that. I mean it is good to have diversity in popular culture and entertainment but you get appreciation for that, not bonus points.

This however is where it all starts to stagger and fall apart a bit. I don’t know if there was a longer series planned and it got cut short, but I have not seen anything to suggest that was the case. If that is not what happened, then the sad result is that after a promising start, the series seems to hit a kind of rushed and chaotic vibe from after the second issue – and issue by issue it seems to get worse until the finale. The character development is weak and (again) feels both rushed and unearned for both the women and by the end it feels like a story that had an end-point in mind that came too soon and thus had no choice but to compress too much into the pages leading up to it. Even the romance angle felt rushed and like the character journeys, I felt low-grade mental whiplash thinking “wait, what?” a bit too much.

A nice peek into gamer/streamer life.
Mostly well drawn.
Good in concept and mediocre in execution.

If you’ve enjoyed the Massive-verse comics and this one in particular in her cameos in other comics, sure, you might like the immersion into Evas’ world and it isn’t bad per-se. But I was less than impressed and by the end I am pretty sure that I would be hard-pressed to read another volume of this comic/character.

All my reviews are also on GoodReads