Well, my book of the month this week was going to be Garth Ennis’s Battlefields:Night Witches, but then I read issue #2 and groaned audibly. My issues with Ennis’s writing are another issue entirely, however, so let’s get to the fall-back book of the month, shall we?

December’s book of the month is a new series that started two weeks ago, Kat Cahill and Jim Valentino’s I Hate Gallant Girl. The underlying premise of the 3-issue miniseries is that every decade, a pageant (of course) is held to select the new Gallant Girl. Renee Tempete, Miss Maine, is an incredibly gifted superhero and has been practicing for the pageant her whole life. On paper, she’s the perfect Gallant Girl. She can control all four elements, for example, while most superheroes can control only one. Unfortunately for Renee, she’s not blonde, petite and perky, so the title goes to the nearly talentless Miss California (an alarming Supergirl lookalike). Renee suffers through a series of indignities at the hands of the Gallant Girl committee, even being offered a blonde wig and the chance to do all the real work for Gallant Girl while Miss California gets all the credit. Eventually, with the help of the mysterious Mr. Thunder, Renee takes matters into her own hands and becomes a superhero of her own creation.

Cahill and Valentino do an excellent job of handling the topic at hand, namely the over-recognition of the beautiful over the actually qualified, without hitting the reader over the head with anvil after anvil. It’s a lighthearted approach to a fairly serious topic, and is just quirky and over-the-top enough to interest both kids and adults alike.

Violence: None, save crimefighting.

Sexualised Violence: None.

Gender: Central focus is on a female superheroine passed over as Gallant Girl in favor of a more physically attractive candidate.

The Bechdel-Wallace Test:

Minorities: None, unfortunately, and this may be the chief failing of the book.