A-Force #5 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This series has been inconsistent at times, but Bennett, Wilson, and Medina deliver a rather fun romp here at the end.

We're treated to several pages of the women of Arcadia fighting the zombies that pour through the breach in the Shield that Loki created last issue.  The good news is that it's a real tour de force of art and characterization.  Rather than using generic battle banter, Bennett and Wilson really doing a great job making sure that every witty comment sounds like it should vis-à-vis the person making it.  I really loved the Black Widow wearily telling Jubilee and X-23 (I think), "Yes, yes, you'll all be incredibly useful at trivia night," as the two of them compared notes on zombie movies.  Moreover, Medina does a spectacular job of making the action easily followable and the characters still identifiable, even after pages and pages of fighting.

My only complaint is the ending, and not just because it involves the deus ex machina of ??? (now called Singularity) sacrificing herself to destroy the zombies.  It's that I don't understand how that saves Arcadia.  After all, she didn't destroy all the zombies.  We also know that the entire Shield is broken since Grimm left to find Doom (as seen in "Secret Wars" #6 and "Siege" #4).  As such, Arcadia's position is a lot more precarious than the upbeat ending here implies it to be, since it's not like the hole in the Shield has been (or even can be) plugged.

But, it is what it is.  The fact that we know that this team reconstitutes in the "real" world after "Secret Wars" ends already had limited the impact of the sacrifices that we see here.  It hasn't been my favorite tie-in series, but it definitely picked up steam as it went.

*** (three of five stars)