Bitch Planet #10 Review – The Riot’s Not Over Yet!
By Matt Conner
President Bitch continues as the prison riots settle just in time for President Doane’s story to take another violent turn!
Bitch Planet #10
Written by Kelly Sue DeConnick
Art by Valentine De Landro
Published by Image, Inc.
Cover by Valentine De Landro
Bitch Planet‘s President Bitch story picks up where we left off six months ago, where Eleanor Doane has been found in a vicious prison riot. The “Previously” column says she’s a presumed dead former President. Maybe it said that in a previous issue, but my memory for single issues more than six months ago? Not so good.
I do, however, remember the last few issues of the President Bitch story injecting action and tension to this thoughtful feminist text. This week, as the riots settle, the President organizes the women of her colony toward a more precise violence. She’s connecting the more memorable threads of the last few issues into dramatic and permanent change to the setting of Bitch Planet. And back on Earth, a handful of women light the fuse on something even bigger. Something in Doane’s name. Something they can never take back.
DeConnick and De Landro have learned to accept the book’s scheduling delays and seem to be telling a story that can accommodate that. The pacing has picked up, and the plot depends less on memorizing plot points from, seriously, two years ago. Bitch Planet‘s brutality continues to rise above gratuity, shocking but always to prove a point.
As always, the back matter essays make this book so much more valuable than the story alone. This time, DeConnick reflects on the feminist defeat last Election Night (Yep, it’s that behind in schedule) with the beautiful promise, “Every hill we climb makes us stronger, and strength puts the higher hills within our reach.” Sadly, the letters page lacks the powerful interplay of the last few issues. And the two-page spread of photos from the Women’s Marches, though meaningful, already feels dated after three months of misogynist comment after misogynist comment in the political news.
The Bottom Line
Bitch Planet continues the winning streak of the first President Bitch issues, but the publishing delays are starting to hurt the necessary feminist conversation in the latter half of the book.