Butterfly TP Review

 

Story & Creator: Arash Amel

Writer: Marguerite Bennett

Artists: Antonio Fuso & Stefano Simeone

Colorist: Adam Guzowski

Letterer: Steve Wands

Publisher: Boom! Studios

Price: $17.99

Release Date: August 12, 2025 

 

As Rebecca Faulkner peruses the skyline of Oslo, Norway, her thoughts drift back to a simpler time. When she belonged, and every day was a joy. Rebecca has changed so much that she wonders if she can even trust her memories. How much of what she remembers happened, and how much is a creation of her mind? And how might her next mission reconnect her with her past? Let's grab our Walther PPKs, leap into Butterfly TP, and see!

 

Story

After her father died, Rebecca's life fell apart. Her mother became devastated and embittered. Eventually, she found another life partner. But young Becky had no one to help her deal with her loss. So, she followed her father's career path. Eventually, she landed at The Project. The company trains operatives to discard their identities. She no longer goes by Becky or Rebecca. All Rebecca recognizes now is her codename of Butterfly.

 

In Butterfly TP, a retrieval mission goes horribly wrong. When the dust settles, the world believes Rebecca has killed a Russian oligarch. Suddenly, her employer no longer takes her calls. What little direction she receives leads her on a journey into her past and the father she barely remembers. While Arash Amel and Marguerite Bennett's story follows Rebecca, it also shows us events from her father's eyes. Much to Rebecca's surprise, David Faulkner didn’t die in Somalia. He has spent the past twenty years in hiding. Her father is married to a woman younger than her. Rebecca's half-brother likes dinosaurs.

 

As in her Witchblade stories for Top Cow, Marguerite Bennett discusses how institutions can strip us of our individuality. Her story of intrigue, pain, and loss reminds us what it does to our souls when others value us for our skills over who we are. Butterfly TP shows how governments and companies attract idealists before corrupting their grand plans to appease commercial and political concerns. Still, Rebecca and David have found each other. If they can survive everything the world throws at them, perhaps they can start over as father and daughter. 

 

Art

Antonio Fuso introduces Rebecca with glimpses of her past. A river winds through an evergreen forest as her father helps Becky aim her rifle and shoot bottles off a wooden fence. Adam Guzowski links father and daughter with a maroon flannel shirt and a pink jacket. The lenses of David’s glasses are the same blue as Becky’s eyes. 

 

Rebecca stands on a balcony in modern Oslo. Her blonde hair sways in the breeze as she frowns at the historic buildings surrounding her. Like the bottles on the fence post, a glass of red wine perches atop the hotel's wrought iron balcony railing. A beauty kit mingles with armaments in her room. A quick change transforms Rebecca into a woman with short brown hair. Wearing a sweater, scarf, and glasses with narrow, rectangular lenses, she pulls on a backpack. After leaving the hotel, Rebecca merges with the crowd before finding a baby carriage and adding that to her disguise. 

 

Stefano Simeone relays the second half of Butterfly TP. Rebecca's world grows less angular after she reunites with her father. Camera angles shift as Adam Guzowski anchors us in her new reality. David Faulkner's hair has gone gray. He pulls on a checked maroon coat, while Rebecca wears a pink jacket. Once again, evergreens surround father and daughter as they seek safety from their pursuers. As backgrounds turned scarlet when young Becky shot a bird, white snow now drifts through a red sky as a streak of yellow impacts and travels through a soldier’s throat.

 

Steve Wands fills dialogue balloons and colored narrative boxes with black uppercase text. David Faulkner's thoughts and memories of why he faked his death appear as white letters in black boxes. Sound effects help us hear alarms, gunfire, and explosions, while crashes accompany shattered dreams. Thanks to Boom! Studios for providing a review copy. 

 

Final Thoughts

Butterfly TP follows two surveillance agents living in Europe. Both Americans have seen their dreams become nightmares. They are also related. As they reconnect, they must flee the people hunting them. The reissued trade paperback contains extensive commentary from the story's creators, the original Hollywood pitch, production photos, and interviews with the cast, producers, and showrunners of the new, reimagined Amazon Prime TV series.

 

Rating 9.6/10

The review originally published at Comic Book Dispatch.

Check out Butterfly Season 1 at Amazon.com.