Rat Queens #12

Previously in Rat Queens #11

After a night of drunken revelry, last issue concluded with Betty getting caught by another smidge, who bragged about Betty being the final piece to her collection. Luckily, for Betty this issue begins as a drunken Violet kicks down the locked door to Betty’s room, mistaking it for her own.

Violet is able to fight off the smidgen, but not before she escapes by throwing a vomiter, which of course is a bomb that makes people vomit. Betty apprehensively explains that the bounty hunter was there because her former team, The Five Monkeys, were framed on their last quest and are now wanted. Betty is the only member who hasn’t been caught yet. Once again, Weibe reiterates the unconditional love the girls have for each other as Violet tells Betty she loves her no matter what, even as Betty is struggling through her story.

Betty asks Violet not to tell Hannah and Dee because she’s too embarrassed. We also get a little more exposition into Betty’s past as we learn she’s from Cloverdale, and she’s able to tell the smidgen who attacked her is from a neighboring town called Brookindale by the way she favored her left hand, and she knows the bounty hunter is a Bogin because she has purple eyes.

We also get a glimpse into Dee’s new powers as the High Priestess as she’s able to view her homeland and listen in on her mother and little brother in either a dream or in an ethereal state. She also performs a ritual that seems to bother her but it’s not explained to what end. Although no dialogue is spoken by Dee during this sequence, she appears resigned, but perhaps she’s not all in on her new responsibilities.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”#4A7097″ class=”” size=””]“Hannah, I love you, but I lose sleep thinking about the condition of your soul.” - Dee[/pullquote]

Finally, we get to all four girls who are stuck on a mountain pass in the middle of a blizzard, which Hannah deduces is magically induced, while finally trying to get to Mage U. Hannah casts a map spell and finds a cave nearby where the arcana smokers hung out. While inside Hannah, reminisces on all the evil pranks she used to pull on the drugged-out smokers. She gets so much evil glee from this that it even freaks Dee out.

As the girls sleep, Hannah wanders around and is confronted by Hazirel, a Demon who’s connected to her half-breed heritage. Hannah is clearly troubled by the demon as she doesn’t want the girls to find out about him. Hannah, in a desperate attempt to save her friends during the Orc attack on Palisade, tapped into Hazirel’s power and in the process initiated a pact which seems to enslave her to him.

When Hannah begs Hazirel to keep the secret, he leaves but sends hell shades after them. The Rat Queens are barely able to escape the shades, but leave half their equipment in the process. As they make their way to Mage U. the storm, and the beating they took from the shades, proves too much as the issues ends with each falling one by one.

Thoughts

• I had some issues with the pacing of this issue as everything seemed disjointed. I even wondered if the digital copy I got was missing pages.
• Although Betty is always portrayed as the sweet lovable one, she’s also a badass when the need arises so it surprised me how helpless she was when confronted by the smidgen bounty hunter. To the point where she screamed for help when Violet kicked the door in. I wonder if her terror at the smidgen was more psychological.
• Compliments to the way Tess Fowler draws a full-body black woman.
• Although Weibe continues to portray the love the girls have for one another, I like how it’s not  perfect. There are still cracks in the relationships. With Betty, Hannah, and possibly Dee keeping their own secrets it will be interesting how they come out and if they affect the crew negatively.
• Which brings us to Hannah and her darker - more problematic - secret. I always thought Hannah’s darker image was all for show, and although I still believe Hannah for the most part still has a good heart, I think it’s a scale that she has to work hard to balance, which allows her relationship with the Queens to steer her on the right path. But does she endanger her relationship with them by keeping this secret? Obviously, the fact that she still hides her horns from them proves that she’s terrified of them finding out her heritage let alone by the pact she made with one of the demons. But as Herizel said, although he meant it as a tease, true friendship is mounted in honesty and I believe the girls would forgive anything IF they found out from her and not through circumstances resulting from the pact. It will be interesting how this plays out.