Panel 3: Hoo boy. The first action image, here, is a somewhat inexplicable blunder on the part of 2006-Era Me. Banging on the hapless mook’s helmet with her lower shin would, of course, likely hurt Ninjette’s leg more than the mook’s head. A much better choice would’ve been to have her arch and contort her body and knee him in the face, albeit over her shoulder. This is, in fact, just barely possible, as I have photoreference of a startlingly flexible martial artist performing exactly such a move. (Ah, but from this camera angle, her knee would’ve obscured her face, which is an action-storytelling no-no; whenever possible, you need show the faces and expressions  of a fight’s participants.) A more practical alternative, of course, would’ve been to have Ninjette drive the back of her skull into the mook’s teeth, but that would’ve seemed less flamboyantly “martial-artsy.”

Ah, but by contrast, the second action image in this panel is very strong, and features an excellent arc of motion tracing Ninjette’s backwards heel kick to Hapless Mook’s gonads. Odd that such a strong bit of action choreography should follow a fatally flawed example, though.

Panel 6: I should further point out for the record that Emp-disguised Ninjette’s smirk, here, is in reaction to the incredulous mook’s sputtering in panel 5. From our mildly inebriated heroine’s POV, her soon-to-be-explained plan is coming together nicely.

Ninjette’s smile, however, is not an example of the wretched, tired, needs-to-be-dispensed-with pop-culture trope that I’ve dubbed “the Action Hero(ine) Smirk.” This is when, in the midst of a theoretically intense and putatively serious fight scene, the Action Hero or Heroine smirks contemptuously, to show off what a stone-cold badass he or she is. Well, comic creators, wipe that idiotically tension-deflating crap off the faces of your characters, you sorry bunch of lazy-ass hacks! You’re privileging the “power fantasy” aspect of the action while undercutting, watering down or outright eliminating the tension, suspense and intensity that should be driving the scene. If your smirking heroine isn’t taking a supposedly dangerous fight seriously, why the hell should the reader? Ask yourself, “What Would (Vintage) Jackie Chan Do?” No action star ever worked harder than ol’ Jackie to inject frantic energy and desperation into fight scenes that were invariably foregone conclusions from the start. Action storytelling—especially of the weak and wanly inept variety that characterizes most of the North American comics field—would be well-served by paying more attention to the concept of “WW(V)JCD?”

-Adam Warren