“Now with added swearing,” the cover to the first ish of the newest Tank Girl (Titan) mini-series trumpets. And that little bit of hype is enough to let readers know that their Aussie heroine hasn’t change a bit since Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin first let her loose on the outback. Originally serialized in the Brit comic mag 2000 A.D., Tank Girl: Skidmarks has been colorized and uncensored for its four-issue mini-. Good news for fans of TG's brand of wanton mayhem.
The plot for this outing turns out to be an ultra-violent parody of Cannonball Run/Death Race 2000. Our hardnosed heroine has joined an illegal cross-continental race to win the money for an operation that’ll bring her friend Barney out of a skakeboard accident coma. The rule-free competition is peopled by disposable caricatures like a souped-up cart of club-wielding golfers and a Burt Reynolds lookalike. Accompanied by her boyfriend Booga, a talking mutant kangaroo, Tank Girl enters the race little, knowing she’s being pursued by a mysterious figure who speaks in futuristic Abo gibberish. Car and tank crashes – plus at least one decapitation – ensue. Oh, and one guy gets a grenade stuck in his mouth.
Scripted by Martin and illustrated by Rufus Dayglo with plenty of flair — though he doesn’t make our heroine look quite as punk-y as original artist Hewlett did — Skidmarks proves a worthy successor to earlier adventures. Next ‘un, we’re promised a look back into TG’s school days. Now that should prove an edifying reading experience.