Essential Painkiller Jane

Painkiller Jane (collected) #1

by Joe Quesada, Jimmy Palmiotti (Artist)

PJane Vasko was an undercover police officer attempting to infiltrate a major New York City drug ring. After gaining the trust of dealers, her cover was unknowingly blown and she was forced to submit to a drug cocktail that landed her in a coma until one day she awoke to a world where nothing was the same. Somehow infused with strange powers during her fitful sleep, Jane has nothing left to lose and a whole lot of people to make pay for what they've done. Painkiller Jane's story begins here!

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

Paperback

First published February 20, 2007

About the author

Joseph "Joe" Quesada (born January 12, 1962)is an American comic book editor, writer and artist.

He became known in the 1990s for his work on various Valiant Comics books, such as Ninjak and Solar, Man of the Atom.

He later worked on numerous books for DC Comics and Marvel Comics, such as Batman: Sword of Azrael and X-Factor, before forming his own company, Event Comics, where he published his creator-owned character, Ash.

Reviews

[Mo]

Painkiller Jane's back story reads too much like a cross between The Punisher and Wolverine and the storyline was not very engaging at all. I don't know WHY they went and made a TV series out of this. Seriously, it's horrible.

Joe Quesada: you have failed me.

[j_ay]

research for a sketch card project...
Ugh. Painfully bad writing and while I love 1980s Rick Leonardi, his current style is not as well honed. Inconsistent inking and colouring does him no favours.
Now how to come up with 12 images for 12 sketch cards for this...ugh.

[Laura]

This was cheesy, over-the-top, and cartoonishly gritty in all the right ways. I was reminded of Max Payne and the one-liners like "collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back". The side characters aren't great and the exposition is kinda terrible, but it's enough fun to be worth it.

[Jennifer Juffer]

My first meeting with Jane.

She’s tough, stubborn and has a heart of gold.

The creative geniuses behind this comic have really created interesting characters that are atypical.
I’ve yet to meet characters that suffer so unduly yet behave so charitably.
I love the underdogs.

So, yeah, I get the revenge part. I get the name.
After all, Jane has to be thrust into a world that will either smother her in despair or make her fight harder against the pain.


It’s a wild ride of a read.

[Caron]

Read Issue #0 out of the full volume.

Not much to review here. This was basically a foretaste and I might be interested in reading more.

[Keith Irwin]

This is a collection of the original Painkiller Jane series. This is basically fun, compelling superhero action with a slightly unconventional hero. I won't say this was amazing. The plots are kind of contrived and the attempts at characterization don't always pan out. But they're trying pretty hard and the main character at least winds up well fleshed out (the others not so much).

In the introduction, one of the creators says that when they decided to make Jane, they wanted to make a female character who doesn't have DDs. Reading the book makes me suspect that they don't have a very good handle on bra sizing because she's definitely up around D or DD cup range. DD is a specific cup size and doesn't mean "as huge as you can draw them without her tipping over". But I think that their real intention was to create a female character whose character is not defined by her sexuality and in that they succeeded. Painkiller Jane does not vamp or seduce.

It was also nice just to see a character who is "invulnerable" but not cartoonishly invulnerable. That is, everything still hurts and its hard to just shrug it off like an action hero. So, in net, the novelty of their character and their approach won me over and I enjoyed reading this.

[Wolverina]

Excellent pulpy action fun, that doesn't fall into boring boobsploitation. Or at least doesn't much. :P