The Essential Satire of Bitch Planet in 12 Shocking Images
We have a place for noncompliants: the Auxiliary Compliance Outpost is a facility designed to house and rehabilitate women who can’t quite get with the program. Many are law-breakers in a traditional sense, but others haven’t yet come to understand the importance of fitting in. They’re a little too loud, a little too proud: generally, unladylike. Perhaps a stay at the ACO, crudely referred to as Bitch Planet (did we mention it’s another planet?), will be just the thing.
The second volume of Bitch Planet, from superstar writer Kelly Sue De Connick (Pretty Deadly, Captain Marvel) and brilliant artist Valentine De Landro, is here. It’s a bloody, dark, funny, touching, and biting satire set in a recognizable future world. It’s designed to look and feel like a 1970s-era exploitation movie, one of those “sexy women in prison” things with all of the violence (and the shower scenes) that implies. These women are victims of a patriarchal system evolved from our own, but they’re not just victims, and they’re not interested in the male gaze. If you’re considering surreptitiously snooping on showering inmates, you’d really best not let them catch you.
This dystopian future is removed from our own only in degree of subtlety, and the satire is incredibly relevant—and pointed. That might turn some readers off, but Bitch Planet decidedly does not care. When even our best entertainments (legitimately good stuff) are designed to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, this one is happy to preach to the choir or offend the congregation in equal measure.
It works on a lot of levels: it’s satire, but it’s also frequently moving, casting a sharp eye on misogyny, racism, body image, and sexual assault. It’s also not messing around. DeConnick and De Landro have things to say, and don’t seem at all interested in watering them down. It’s unflinching, audacious, and entirely necessary. Now, more than ever.
The cast rotates a bit, with Kamau Kogo generally providing us with the primary point of view. Kamau is singled out by the Fathers for her skill at Duemila, aka Megaton, a very much full-contact sport. It’s hoped that setting up competing teams will subdue the natural aggressive tendencies of the noncompliants and boost ratings for ACO media broadcasts. Kamau’s team forms the core cast, at least initially. Penny Rolle is among them: she isn’t the lead character, but she is the book’s heart and soul.
Here’s what we love about here—and the whole bloody mess of a book—in 12 images.
Penny is a hero in a very non-traditional mold.
The first volume provides her with an extended origin story that’s equally heartbreaking and inspiring.
She’s berated for her belligerence, her bigness, her blackness, and her hair, and so the Fathers give her the chance to craft an idealized self-portrait. Suffice it to say: they’re disappointed. It’s the best bit.
She’s also been known to start riots while other characters are trying to get on with the plot.
Of course, not everyone is blessed with Penny’s confidence. Issues related to body image are frequent targets of satire.
There are all sorts of things that can get you branded noncompliant (as long as you’re a woman). The list of potential infractions is long. For Marian, the first Mrs. Collins? She responded rather a bit too stridently to her husband’s affair.
On the ACO, the Fathers are frequently represented by a feminized avatar who can take on several different identities depending upon the situation: she can be a sex kitten, a manipulator, and sometimes a madonna/mother confessor type. You know: all the kinds of women.
Volume 2 introduces us to Eleanor Doane, “President Bitch,” a former world leader who’s been locked away in the darkest, most secret corner of the ACO. We don’t know the exact details of how she wound up there, the Fathers seem to blame her for pretty much everything wrong with the world.
Likewise, the second volume gives us a glimpse of Facility One. This was the earliest prison on the planet, holding the original prisoners: trans women (DeConnick and De Landro offer thanks in the story to the trans women with whom they consulted). The past couple of years have seen an expanding discussion of trans issues, and an ugly backlash, well-represented trans characters are very much welcome.
Of course, if all of this is in any way disturbing to anyone’s sensibilities, the creative team also include some helpful tips for those attempting to navigate a world full strident womanhood.
(The book’s full of little ads and bits like that.)
Preach.
Bitch Planet Volume 2: President Bitch, is available on June 6.