In 2016, Wynonna Earp hit the big time: A TV series on the Syfy network! Well, it beats being on the CW. So naturally, there were comics to tie-in with the show. Things were changed up a bit. Wynonna's appearance was altered to more closely resemble Melanie Scrofano, who portrayed her on the show. Little more biker to the fashion, little less cowboy (the splash page above being an exception rather than a rule.) Different supporting cast, with her boss Agent Dolls, the apparently immortal Mayan warrior princess Valdez, and John Henry, who turns out to be a basically immortal Doc Holliday.
The biggest change is probably in Wynonna's status relative to these characters. In all the other mini-series, she's the leader, the top marshal, and everyone else follows her lead. Here, she's the rookie that everyone else is either trying to rein in, or train up. Whereas before Wynonna seemed calm and in control in most situations, this version is impatient, impulsive, hot-tempered and likes to wing it without considering the consequences. This happens more than once so that Agent Dolls can rap her across the knuckles with old, "We do things by the book! No cowboy shit, Earp!" spiel.
I find Agent Dolls tedious. Why they thought the Wynonna Earp concept needed a Henry Gyrich I don't know. OK, he's not that bad. Dolls is actually useful on some occasions, but he's still a prick.
This mini-series returns to the same notion of settling old family scores as Home on the Strange, but with a bit of a twist. Rather than the Clantons being in charge, it's actually a partially demonic Johnny Ringo that calls Wynonna out in Tombstone. So another showdown with him. In Home on the Strange, Wynonna wins because Wyatt's ghost appears behind him and distracts him, and Wyatt tells her she couldn't have beaten Johnny alone any more than he could. That's always seemed like a cheat to me, the kind of thing that lends credence to all the Clantons' pissing and moaning about how the Earps shoot people in the back.
This time around, Wyatt's alongside her, but I feel like the implication is Wynonna actually does outdraw Ringo. Maybe that's because Earp distracted Ringo again, or he lent some of his spirit to speed up her draw.
That plotline only took six of the eight issues allotted to this mini-series, so the last two issues were one-shots that also did a little world-building and foreshadowing. Witness protection for werewolves and things like that. Beau Smith finally got to work Smitty back into the story in the last issue, as Dolls' boss.
Lora Innes drew five of the eight issues, with Chris Evenhuis handling the other three, including those last two issues. Evenhuis' style is more photo-realistic, much finer line on his artwork, but it lacks some of the energy Innes brings with her art. She's able to draw the fantastic and the supernatural more impressively. Her work can be more exaggerated and cartoonish, but it works for the sometimes silly nature of the stories she's drawing. Like a shootout in a dairy processing plant that also smuggles organs, or a zombie outbreak in a shopping mall. Smith doesn't feel like he's writing everything to be deadly serious, so it's better the art reflects that.
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