Sunday Splash Page #361

"Parachute Optional," in Molly Danger, by Jamal Igle (writer/penciler), Juan Castro (inker), Romulo Fajardo Jr. (colorist), Frank Cvetkovic (letterer)

I bought this from Jamal Igle at the comic con I went to in Knoxville back in 2015. I think Greg Hatcher had mentioned it in one of his columns on the old Comics Should Be Good blog, so when I saw it, I figured, "why not?"

Molly's an alien whose family was on an exploration mission, only to crash land on Earth, where she developed super-powers, which she now uses to help fight various super-powered criminals that emerged from. . .somewhere. While she's very popular, she's also kept isolated from almost everyone, something she's growing increasingly frustrated with.

Igle sets up a lot in less than 50 pages. Molly likes protecting people, but even if she's actually over 30, in a lot of ways she's still the 10-year-old she looks like. She's lonely, that the group she works with are less co-workers (and certainly not friends or family), and more like zookeepers, with her as the exhibit. Her various arch-enemies are connected, even if they don't all realize it, and there's probably some things about Molly's arrival on Earth that aren't what she thinks.

He also introduces a guy who's going to be her new pilot, who doesn't play by the rules. Especially the rule about not being a friend to Molly. And Briggs, that's the pilot, has a stepson he would really like to have like him, who happens to be a huge fan of Molly's. And Molly's excited at the idea of having a friend. Excited enough she snuck into the kid's room at night just to talk.

It's one of the nice touches Igle adds to Molly's character, that she can be a little rebellious, a little sneaky. She definitely uses sad eyes on Briggs to get him to do things a couple of times. That she's so eager to have contact with other people she's not great at boundaries. Keeps her from seeming too perfectly sweet, while still being understandable actions when you see how boss tries to keep her life locked down.

I never saw any more of it. It looks like there was a mini-series called Actionverse, that combined several different characters from books published through Action Lab, and Molly was in there, but that's all I could find.