Huntress Holiday Special ’09

DC Universe Holiday Special ’09 (Huntress)
“Naughty or Nice”
Writer – J. Torres
Pencils – Hubert Khan Michael
Inks – Julio Ferreira
Colors – Tom Smith
Letters – Sal Cipriano
Editors – Adam Schlagman & Eddie Berganza

Looks like Huntress is going to be our sole female-led story this time out.  Weird, we’ve looked at four or so of these Holiday Anthologies here at the blog, and I’m pretty sure only one of ’em had a Wonder Woman story in it!  Not a great showing for one of the “trinity”… and certainly not something that’d happen during “current year”, regardless of how boring Wonder Woman might be!


I kid, I kid… no, really… I don’t.  It’s pretty well documented (here, and only here) that I find Wonder Woman to be, in most situations, almost aggressively dull.  I’m happy we’re getting the Huntress here.


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We open in a candy store, where the shop owner is giving a young fella some side-eye.  Ya see, the child happens to be African-American… and so, the owner thinks he might be up to no good.  He even goes as far as having the poor kid empty his pockets to ensure he didn’t steal anything!  Huntress watches this all go down, and wonders if the Candyman should wind up on the “Naughty or Nice” list.  After kicking the kid out of the shop, a white fella enters the scene, who is welcomed with open arms.  Ya see where this one’s going?  Naturally, the white dude pulls out a pistol and proceeds to rob the joint!

After robbing the place, the thief steps outside… right into the path of the Huntress… she takes care of him pretty quick.

The story wraps up with the Candyman inviting that same African-American child back into the store and giving him a bunch of free sweets.  Helena looks on and thinks that she’s seen the “worst” the shop owner can do… and now she’s considering moving him to the “nice” list.  Wait’ll she finds out about that refrigerator full of body parts he’s got in his basement!

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Is it too late to send this one back for a Wonder Woman story?  I mean, barf.


These stories we’re reading “after the staples” have been pretty weak… it’s almost as though DC feels like most people would give up after reading two or three of the included stories… and that nobody would ever see any of this stuff!  Well, they weren’t counting on this idiot blogger, now were they?


So, whatta we got here?  It’s a classic (and heavy-handed) “Don’t judge a book by its cover” story.  We really could have ceased right after that opening caption… because that’s as good as this story was going to get.  It’s cliche, it allows us all to feel kind of superior, and… well, it really doesn’t do a whole lot more.


As with a lot of these wildly-weak stories we’ve looked at over the past couple of weeks, the art is really nice.  HKM really makes the best of the four pages he’s given… and navigates to a good story with his work.  The most interesting part of this story for me is the fact that this particular candy store had a pretty big Sugar-Free candy section!  As a dude with a sweet-tooth who’s (mostly) cut sugar from his diet… that’s something I’d definitely appreciate!


Tomorrow: Raggin’ around the Christmas Tree (err, Menorah)…