King Tank Girl combines the latest run of the Alan Martin/Brett Parson version of Tanky’s escapades. There’s a lot of fun to be had here, with Parson’s art standing out, and the titular story is a highlight.
King Tank Girl
Alan Martin (Story and Writing); Brett Parson (Art/Colors/Letters)
Titan Comics
November 15, 2022
Alan Martin’s latest Tank Girl run has managed to mash the scatological into the genuinely touching. In this compilation from Titan Comics, that dirty-delightful balance rules the roost. There’s even a little poignancy thrown in, to boot.
The book consists of several long story arcs: King Tank Girl is the best of the lot for its sheer scope, humor, and audacity. In it, Tank Girl yearns for a rare ‘80s figure from the Rangers of the Universe series. When she learns Booga had one as a kid but buried it in the front yard of his family’s vacation house while they were on holiday, she immediately has the gang set sail for England to dig it up. While there, she makes incredibly short work of pulling out the Sword in the Stone (IE: she just blasts it with her tank), leading to her being declared king. Unfortunately, she’s pretty bad at ruling, leading to a series of switcheroos and a forcible expulsion.
The other tales are nothing to sneeze at: the gang travels back to the 1960s in “Barney Don’t Surf” thanks to a lucky talisman in Barney’s possession, resulting in them having to buddy up to a group of squeaky clean teenage surfers called the Kook Patrol. In “3rd Day Commandos,” we learn how Tank Girl met Sub and Jet Girl — and it turns out it was while they were all serving in the same military conflict. Tank Girl treats Booga to a kiddie-sized version of their typical adventures in “The Delightfuls,” and Tank Girl becomes a race car driver in “Tank Girl ‘66: Tank Girl vs Ferrari.” There’s even a chess set you can cut out, construct and play with. But it turns out that all of these stories tie back into a previous arc — and Tank Girl’s wholly uncertain future.
A fun, solid romp that centers itself firmly on some pretty high stakes, King Tank Girl manages to be light and breezy and still has a good solid heft to it. Martin knows what he’s doing when it comes to keeping Tank Girl immaturely mature, and all of her friends follow along in stride.
Parson in particular hits an artistic peak with this series, portraying such polar extremes as cozy domestic scenes as Booga and Tanky snuggled up in bed together and a horrifying tableau that greets Barney at the back of a wardrobe with equal credibility. There’s an excellent opening splash panel in “Barney Don’t Surf” featuring Tank Girl on a towering wave on a surfboard which drew my eye. His style remains more cartoony than Jamie Hewlett’s, but it is delightful and captures the joys and grotesqueries of Tank Girl’s complicated world.
Thirty years into Tank Girl’s run, you know if one of her comics is suited to you. Poop jokes, gore, bare buttocks, implied (though not graphically shown) sex, and their ilk share space with riveting plot development. But as always, the atmosphere is intensely funny and cheerful, like Looney Tunes after dark. That’s enough to get me grinning any day of the week. Hail to the king, baby.
