Comic Review: Painkiller Jane #0

Painkiller Jane #0
Written by: Jimmy Palmiotti
Art by: Lee Moder and Chris Garcia
Cover by: Ron Adrian (l) or Joe Prado (r)
Published by: Dynamite Entertainment

*Spoilers*

Painkiller Jane #0 is a little teaser of a story to get you sucked in cheap before the first ongoing issue comes out or the Sci-Fi Channel’s new series premieres. It’s an exciting eight pages.

Jane’s been staking out a tattoo parlor from which guns are coming. These guns have been used, she tells us, in some homicides and a cop killing. Now she’s in undercover to get some specifics. Unfortunately, it’s a perfect storm type situation as all the wrong people converge in the same spot. We’ve got Jane, we’ve got a gun running tattooist, we’ve got the guy Jane’s looking for, Popeye, and we’ve got Martin, a Russian gun runner…OH WAIT! There’s also the drug addict who wants a tattoo so desperately that he robs a bank bringing the police down on the place. It’s a comedy of errors as everything goes tits-up…or for Jane, ass up as she spends half the time with hers exposed.

Painkiller Jane reminds me of a toned down Punisher with a more attractive lead. If you like the old school stylings of The Punisher and strong, sexy lead females, then Painkiller Jane is for you. But let’s not leave out the art…Moder draws a good-looking Jane and Dynamite action sequences. Jane seems to change her appearance, however, as in some panels she seems to have a more pronounced chin than in others, her head seems longer here than it seemed there.

Rating: 4 Worms...In a small amount of space we get a lot of interesting, exciting story and good art