Writer: Josie Campbell
Artist: Alessio Zonno
Colorist: Angel De Santiago
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Cover Artists: Alessio Zonno, Johanna The Mad & Frany
Publisher: Boom!
Price: $4.99
Release Date: May 15, 2024
Trini’s Podunk Lil’ Team has qualified for the opening match in Queen Mob’s first national Screaming Pain Ball tournament. But they lost their Second Striker after he transformed into a Super Mutant during their qualifying match with the Bubble City Bullets. Can the team bond with their replacement player, Cutter Dan, before facing off against The Plague Town Masks? Let's get our heads in the game, leap into I Heart Skull-Crusher #3, and find out!
Story
Trini Wastelander, Cutter Dan, Coach Blood-Bone, and the bandit twins are the only qualifying amateur team in Queen Mob's new tournament. Now, Podunk Lil' Team must raise their game to take on the professional teams. Winning the tournament is their ticket to leaving the wastelands and living in the Bubble Cities. They could even end up on Skull-Crusher's team! But this isn't just a competition between teams. The Tyrant Overlords hosting the games must impress Queen Mob. Failure to please her could cost the rulers their jobs, if not their lives.
In I Heart Skull-Crusher #3, Podunk Lil’ Team is in disarray. Coach Blood-Bone is tired of being chained to the goal and forced to play. So he drafted David, the Mutant Bear. He's the team's new Goalie. The teammates aren't buying that David's a mutant, even if he wears a hat. But when Trini and Cutter Dan keep arguing over who is First Striker, Coach Blood-Bone knocks the players out and locks them in an abandoned building. If they can escape and reach their match tomorrow, perhaps they have a chance of winning.
Escaping the locked building won’t prove easy. Arsenic True, the captain of The Plague Town Masks, did a deal with the Bubble City Bullets’ captain. He watches Coach Blood-Bone trap them in the building and decides to make their dilemma more deadly. Arsenic True has a history with Blood-Bone. He knows how to get inside the Blood-Bone’s head and remind the coach that he spent years in an alcohol-ridden haze until Trini dragged him out of it.
The bandit twins want to live in the Bubble cities so they can rob rich people. Cutter Dan wants to eclipse his late brother's legendary status. Trini adores Skull-Crusher, but her true love is the game. Screaming Pain Ball is her passion. It gives her life meaning and makes her feel part of something greater than herself.
In I Heart Skull-Crusher #3, Josie Campbell casts out tantalizing facts about the Bad Week that transformed the United States Of America into Queen Mob's American Waste. Trini and her team confront a team of brutal killers and a Tyrant’s deadly tricks. But mostly, Campbell's story asks who we fight for and what we're willing to do to come out on top in life.
Art
Trini pulls her armored van off Damnation Alley beside a badly painted sign for the Shrieking Crater. The bandit twins stand together aloof while Trini and Cutter Dan Face Off over who is First Striker. Chained to the van, Coach Blood-Bone urges them to resolve their differences. Then he collapses, alcohol spilling from a hole in his spiked mace. An overview of the Bubble City shows the domed arena at its heart, in this society where attending matches and standing for the national anthem is compulsory.
Trini Wastelander and Cutter Dan evoke High School students, while the bandit twins emulate Harley Quinn armed with poison darts instead of a hammer. David takes ownership of the coach's chain. The Mutant Bear wears his hat backward, drools, and eats honey. The Tyrant Overlord orchestrating their first match resembles a power-mad Hercules, while the punk ruler Queen Mob hides in shadow. As the frantic action of their match commences, The Plague Town Masks attack, adorned in helmets and masks from prior world wars. Yet when the game reaches its most brutal moment, Arsenic True’s mask transforms into a Raven's head. But then, Alessio Zonno enjoys exaggerating Trini and her team's features to heighten emotional moments.
Angel De Santiago lavishes a loaded palette of soft but electrifying colors on I Heart Skull-Crusher #3. From the twins’ green and magenta glasses to silhouettes outlined in purple as the team faces drooling David, to the light streaming through window blinds that colors Cutter Dan’s brown dreads yellow while leaving Trini’s headband red, De Santiago keeps each page looking fresh and vibrant. Jim Campbell slings uppercase letters of varying sizes into dialogue balloons, emphasizes the murderous gameplay with sound effects, and gives trading cards a 3D appearance. The teams' names pop out with street style and vigor as the announcer introduces the opponents, reminding readers of the spray-painted sign that welcomed readers into Trini's latest mad, Furiosa adventure.
Thanks to Boom! Studios for providing a copy for review.
Final Thoughts
Coach Blood-Bone confronts his unsavory past, Trini sacrifices her ego for the good of the team, and Queen Mob takes an unhealthy interest in Podunk Lil’ Team, the only amateur team to challenge her bands of professional bloodsport killers.
Rating 9.2/10
For more cover art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.
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