I Heart Skull-Crusher #8 Review

 

Writer: Josie Campbell

Artist: Alessio Zonno

Colorist: Angel De Santiago

Letterer: Jim Campbell

Cover Artists: Alessio Zonno & Fell Hound

Designer: Grace Park

Editors: Kenzie Rzonca, Elizabeth Brei & Matt Gagnon

Special Thanks: Dafna Pleban

Publisher: Boom!

Price: $4.99

Release Date: March 26, 2025

 

When no teams would accept Trini, she founded Podunk Lil' Team and convinced Coach Blood-Bone to train them. Her team of wastelanders disgraced the professionals in Queen Mob's contest. While this delighted Queen Mob, it angered the Bubble City tyrants. Queen Mob isn't looking for sycophants. Nor does she want someone who kowtows to others. Even Trini’s idol caved to the system. So Queen Mob disowned her son Marcus and made things harder on Trini by splitting up the Podunk Lil' Team.

 

Trini plays on Team Skull Crusher. Marcus Mob is her captain. Queen Mob will use her new Bubble Cities Tournament to find her successor. Everything is in play, and everyone hates Trini. While Queen Mob holds Team Skull-Crusher to Trini’s No Killing vow, the other teams chomp at the bit to take advantage of triple murder points. Will her new teammates kill Trini for making their lives difficult? Can Team Skull-Crusher survive the Bubble Cities Tournament amid the fierce power struggle? Let's get our heads in the game, leap into I Heart Skull-Crusher #8, and find out!

 

Story

When Team Skull-Crusher arrives in Alaska, they get a cold reception. They don't get lavish digs. Trini's captain, Marcus Mob, blames her for losing their sponsors. She may be their star rookie and the apple of Queen Mob's eye, but the former heir wants to kill her. But then, Trini shamed him when they played on opposing teams.

 

In the wasteland once called Phoenix, Skull-Crusher threatened to kill Trini. But Trini's idol seems to warm to her in their cold barracks at Iceberg Dome. Their former sponsors liked Skull-Crusher’s teammates because they stayed out of her way and let Skull-Crusher win by murdering the opposition. This approach made her a champion but soured Skull Crusher on Screaming Pain Ball. So, in I Heart Skull-Crusher #8, Trini's idol conceives a bold new strategy. Instead of exploiting the rules, why not play the game?

 

Screaming Pain Ball may have always been a blood sport. But in Josie Campbell’s story, it has devolved into little more than deadly gladiator contests. Trini couldn't see that growing up because she adored the sport and idolized Skull-Crusher. But with the other teams studying Trini's playbook and anxious to reap the rewards for killing her, Trini and Skull-Crusher realize they must embrace the game's spirit and reject the exploitation of death and destruction it has become.

 

Art

Outside Iceberg Dome, a billboard promises spectators that the Iceberg Dome Fighters will kill Trini Wastelander. Faced with little more than barren mattresses and toilets, Marcus and her teammates surround Trini in the empty hall. Skull-Crusher breaks through the thin wall to pull Trini onto the practice court. Then, she demolishes another wall to reveal Coach Blood-Bone drinking away his problems in I Hate Skull-Crusher #8.

 

Angel De Santiago applies a series of limited palettes to Alessio Zonno’s fanciful characters, fraught action scenes, over-the-top caricatures, and silhouettes. Intensity and emotion heighten the colors while treating Trini and Skull-Crusher's cold welcome as little more than a charcoal drawing. The green and magenta bandit twins seem at home amid the purple-shaded dome, while a white seat amid purple spectators reveals Cutter Dan's absence. Attended by her penguin servants, Tyrant Tasha looks resplendent in her white parka while seated on her ice block throne. As Team Skull-Crusher enters the arena, Trini's memories of training for this bout receive mauve, orange, and brown.

 

Jim Campbell fills white dialogue balloons and colored narrative boxes with small uppercase lettering that grows bold for inflection and enlarges for volume. Tyrant Tasha speaks shaky lines of lowercase letters with increased spacing into dialogue balloons. Giant letters and music notes accompany storybook depictions of Dave The (Mutant) Bear-Man's latest exploits in I Hate Skull-Crusher #8. Sound effects enhance a training session and tournament match as deceptive holograms crackle, and the spectators shout their desire for broken bones and dead wastelanders. Thanks to Boom! Studios for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

When Queen Mob announced her second Bubble Cities Tournament, the other tyrants objected to her bringing new blood into the sport. They could accept Skull-Crusher because the crowds adored her, and she won. However, allowing other wastelanders to join their ranks will dilute the purity of their society. As Queen Mob threatens to break the culture that uplifted her, Trini wonders who she can trust with her life in I Heart Skull Crusher #8: her former teammates or idol.

 

Rating 9/10

 

For more covers see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.

I Heart Skull-Crusher #6 Review

 

Writer: Josie Campbell

Artist: Alessio Zonno

Colorist: Angel De Santiago

Letterer: Jim Campbell

Cover Artists: Alessio Zonno; Brittney Williams; Alessio Zonno & Angel De Santiago

Designer: Grace Park

Editors: Kenzie Rzonca, Elizabeth Brei, Bryce Carlson & Matt Gagnon

Special Thanks: Dafna Pleban

Publisher: Boom!

Price: $4.99

Release Date: October 9, 2024

 

Trini Wastelander has achieved her lifelong ambition. Her amateur Podunk Lil Team defeated the professionals and won the championship. But now, Trini joins her idol's team as Queen Mob sells Cutter Dan, the Bandit Twins, and Dave The Mutant Bear-Man to other teams. As the Screaming Pain Ball teams return to the Bubble Cites, how will Queen Mob spice up her next tournament? Let's get our heads in the game, leap into I Heart Skull-Crusher #6, and find out!

 

Story

In Josie Campbell's story, Queen Mob poisoned one of her empire’s few remaining lakes. As the teams battled in an immense arena, she dropped sections of the grandstands into the poisoned lake and drowned Crater Town. But as she slays her subjects, Queen Mob looks toward the future. She pits the tyrants of the bubble cities against each other while seeking a worthy successor.

 

Trini reminds herself that, with Coach Blood-Bone's help, she welded her teammates into a well-oiled machine. As she joins the Goalie Deckard, Second Striker Huxley, and First Defender Trish for the ride back to Queen Mob’s Capital Dome, she vows to forge friendships with her new teammates. But her new captain, Marcus Mob, squashes that idea quickly. Trini made him look bad when Podunk Lil Team defeated the Bubble City Bullets. Queen Mob disowned Marcus when he tried to overrule her decision to let Podunk Lil Team win the championship. As they compete against the other bubble cities in Queen Mob’s new tournament, Marcus has one rule: no one befriends Trini. But he and Trini discover that everything revolves around Skull-Crusher. And just as Queen Mob likes surprises, the team will get another surprise player in I Heart Skull-Crusher #6.

 

While Trini loved the bandit twins and Dave The Mutant Bear-Man, she misses Cutter Dan most. As she grew up alone, with only the skulls she dubbed Mother and Father, Screaming Pain Ball became her world. But the life of a sports professional clashes with everything she envisioned. Her teammates will never be her friends, and the rules encourage players to kill each other. While never lowering her guard, Trini must find a way to preserve her love for the game and avoid becoming a cynic like her hero.

 

Art

Alessio Zonno blends postmodern imagery and historic grandeur with comic characters and fanciful caricatures in I Heart Skull-Crusher #6. It's a world of the Haves vs the Have Nots, as Queen Mob’s soldiers pull Trini away from former teammates who stare at a cheering crowd through hologrammatic banners. Trini's soulful eyes peer through the shutters of the four-axle vehicle as the convoy races through the American Waste to Queen Mob's Capitol Dome. Only Skull-Crusher rides solo, wearing a scowl and crossing her arms over her chest, as her motorcycle steers a straight path between the armored trucks.

 

Angel De Santiago fills Trini’s world with bold colors in I Heart Skull-Crusher #6. The green trucks contrast with the glaring yellow American Waste. Inside Trini's transport, swashbuckling Marcus stands before a green and beige trading card listing his statistics and accomplishments. Air rushes through the window shutters, making his black cape trimmed with gold braid flutter and revealing a Londo Calrissian-like blue lining. The light filling each giant Victorian-style dome colors the classic architecture pink and blue while red and pink crowds cheer amid tropical greenery.

 

As Trini and Cutter Dan embrace, Jim Campbell fills white dialogue balloons and colored narrative boxes with small uppercase lettering that grows bold for inflection and enlarges for shouts. Giant letters identify the bubble cities on a map showing the extent of Queen Mob's domain. Sound effects arise as Trini and Cutter Dan fall through the floor, giant dialogue helps us hear the cheering crowd, and music notes adorn a touching song as Dave The Mutant Bear-Man roars amid cherubs and flowers. Thanks to Boom! Studios for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

When Queen Mob breaks up Podunk Lil Team, Trini must convince her new team not to kill her friends in I Heart Skull-Crusher #6. Unfortunately, her new teammates include a team captain with an axe to grind and Trini's lifelong idol who wins by any means necessary.  

 

Rating 9.2/10

 

For more cover art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.

I Heart Skull-Crusher #5 Review

 

Writer: Josie Campbell

Artist: Alessio Zonno

Colorist: Angel De Santiago

Letterer: Jim Campbell

Cover Artists: Alessio Zonno, Toni Infante; Alessio Zonno; Alessio Zonno and Angel De Santiago

Publisher: Boom!

Price: $4.99

Release Date: July 17, 2024

 

Trini Wastelander defied the naysayers. Her Podunk Lil’ Team trounced the Tyrant-funded teams. Can Trini’s team defeat their opponents in the final round of Queen Mob’s championship and join Skull-Crusher’s team? Let's get our heads in the game, leap into I Heart Skull-Crusher #5, and find out!

 

Story

Forget one team competing against another. Forget the rules. In this final game of Queen Mob’s Screaming Pain Ball tournament, spectators cheer as five teams compete on an obstacle course akin to Canyonlands National Park.

 

Queen Mob built Earth’s largest stadium. She transported it to Crater Town via airship. Then she poisoned a lake that survived the Bad Week and the Murder Winds. The final game in I Heart Skull-Crusher #5 shows Queen Mob’s disdain for all others and the rules. People live and die to please her whims. Tyrants—the leaders of bubble cities--are disposable. Skull-Crusher has been her favorite champion. But the times, they are A-Changin’.

 

Skull-Crusher lit up Trini’s world. Growing up with little to call her own, Skull-Crusher became her idol and Screaming Pain Ball her obsession. Skull-Crusher also came from the American Wastes. Coach Blood-Bone trained Skull-Crusher. He saw her rise through the competition to become Queen Mob's favorite. Then, the coach abandoned the sport that defined him and drowned himself in alcohol while Skull-Crusher grew disillusioned and cynical.

 

Trini gave the twins a new purpose in life. She gave Coach Blood-Bone a reason to hope. She gave Cutter Dan a new family after his older brother’s death. In I Heart Skull-Crusher #5, Josie Campbell strips away Skull-Crusher’s veneer of heroism, and Trini sees her idol as she is. Trini must choose between the reality that made Skull-Crusher an inspiration and the dream that forged her into the leader of the best amateur team of the American Wastes.

 

Art

Lights illuminate packed grandstands and an obstacle course that dwarfs the competitors. Panels radiate like banners as silhouettes cheer before a big-screen closeup of Trini and Alessio Zonno compares the spectators to a young girl worshipping her idol. As Skull-Crusher breaks down barriers with a Sakaaran hammer, the dripping love skulls vanish from Trini's eyes. The girl picks up a twin and becomes The Running Woman amid her idol’s warpath.

 

A white blade slices into a twin's green-and-pink arm, and yellow energy crackles like lightning. Spectrums of green, pink, and yellow light radiate from Queen Mob's court, evoking the cover of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. A green flashback reveals the decision that changed Skull-Crusher forever. Trini’s hero yanks a chain that scatters silhouettes at the heart of a yellow-and-orange explosion.

 

Amid Angel De Santiago’s vibrant colors in this action-packed finale, Jim Campbell fills white dialogue balloons and colored narrative boxes with small uppercase lettering that emboldens for inflection, shrinks for lowered voices, and enlarges for shouts. Sound effects emphasize The Most Dangerous Game, the destruction of an arena, and the death of a town in I Heart Skull-Crusher #5. Thanks to Boom! Studios for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

Screaming Pain Ball was Trini's ticket out of the American Wastes. Queen Mob promised the winner a career alongside her champion. But Queen Mob changes the rules and redefines the reward in I Heart Skull-Crusher #5, while Trini discovers an essential truth about herself. On the brink of achieving her life dream, Trini discovers that winning won't bring the success she envisioned.

 

Rating 9/10

 

To view more cover art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.

I Heart Skull-Crusher #4 Review

 

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: June 19, 2024

 

Trini’s Podunk Lil’ Team beat the Bubble City Bullets and The Plague Town Masks. They've swept the competition, defeating the Neo Navada Nets, The Bombers, The Dead City Drills, The Forever-War Warriors (Joe Haldeman’s favorite team), and the Nightmare-Ville Mechs. How will they fare in the Finals of Queen Mob’s Screaming Pain Ball tournament? Let's get our heads in the game, leap into I Heart Skull-Crusher #4, and find out!

 

Story

Screaming Pain Ball is the national sport of the American Waste. Trini Wastelander fell in love with the game when she was six, and no one embodied SPB better than Skull-Crusher. Trini dreams of becoming a great SPB player and joining Skull-Crusher’s team, but her town gets overlooked by team scouts. So when Queen Mob announced that a national tournament would be open to amateurs, Trini knew this was her shot at the big time. She created the Podunk Lil' Team. Her love of the game and loyalty to her teammates have helped them reach the Finals. So they travel to Crater Town to face off against the remaining teams. But first, they must survive the Tyrants' Dinner.

 

Trini and Cutter Dan dress up and mix with the tyrants. Marcus, the former captain and forward striker of the Bubble City Bullets, attends with two of his mutant players. Marcus messes with Cutter Dan's head, suggesting Cutter Dan left the Bubble City Bullets when Marcus abandoned the field and forfeited the game. But Cutter Dan is more concerned about protecting Trini.

 

While other players happily live and let die, Trini reveres her national pastime and feels honored to be a participant. In I Heart Skull-Crusher #4, Josie Campbell grants Trini part of her dream, reveals more of Cutter Dan’s history, and explains why Coach Blood-Bone found solace in alcohol. Until now, Trini’s love for the game, her team, and Skull-Crusher have kept her going. What happens at the Tyrants’ Dinner shakes Trini's world and makes her question her actions and goals.

 

Don’t cry, Trini! Use your illusion to defeat them!

 

Art

Logos and teasers of the teams fill the first column of a diagonal elimination chart. Key scenes from recent fights spill across the opening pages. As Trini, Cutter Dan, and the twins push their broken-down Dakar Rally truck through jagged barren hills, the ankle-chained Coach Blood-Bone sunbathes on the roof, and David, the Anti-Mutant Bear-Man, pokes his head out a window, defiantly wearing his hat backward. They behold islands and a grassy tree-dotted peninsula bisecting a lake-filled crater. Then they walk down the brick streets of Crater Town as pennants flutter overhead between the tall buildings. A flying saucer hits the team with a spotlight and activates a cannon in I Heart Skull-Crusher #4.

 

Angel De Santiago keys limited palettes to Alessio Zonno’s settings and character interactions. Grays, browns, and yellow steep Crater Town and an elegant mansion, mutants drool green ooze, and closeups are grounded in vibrant red, pink, and orange. A redhead in a scarlet-stained white parka skates across a purple background as a penguin offers Trini a green cocktail.

 

Jim Campbell fills white dialogue balloons and colored narrative boxes with uppercase and lowercase lettering in eye-catching fonts. Team names are stylized and often mimic 3D. Sound effects help us hear a zeppelin fly overhead and release a payload with an almighty wham. Cheering fills the air as a shocking crash accompanies a soul-crushing realization in I Heart Skull-Crusher #4. Thanks to Boom! Studios for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

We learn why Queen Mob wanted Podunk Lil’ Team dead or alive (okay, mostly dead), Coach Blood-Bone tells disbelievers of David The Anti-Mutant Bear-Man to have a nice day, and Trini falls in and out of love in I Heart Skull-Crusher #4.

 

Rating 9/10

 

For more cover art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.

I Heart Skull-Crusher #3 Review

 

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.