Space Bandits, by Mark Millar and Matteo Scalera (Image Comics) | review by Stephen Theaker

Cody is an Orcadian space bandit. She has a telepathic link to a Nibiruan White Lizard, which will no doubt come in handy, and she has led her gang on ten successful jobs in twelve months, without killing a single person. Unfortunately, when the time comes to split up the money, the four men in her gang decide that they would be better off not splitting it with her. They shoot her and leave her for dead. This all happens in the first ten pages. Over the five issues collected in this volume she will team up with Thena Kole, a con artist who has suffered a betrayal of her own, and they will have their revenge.

It’s action-packed (the reader is rarely more than a couple of pages away from someone being shot or punched), and feels a bit like a 2000 AD version of Saga, with Matteo Scalera’s art reminding me of Ian Gibson or Mike McMahon. It looks great throughout, especially the alien creatures, and the 1980s theme makes for some wild fashions. So I certainly didn’t dislike the book, but (unusually for a Mark Millar comic) it didn’t really stick with me either. If Netflix make it into a film, I would watch it for the spectacle, but I’ll wait for any comic book sequels to make their way to me, rather than seeking them out. Stephen Theaker ***