50 Girls 50 #1

Written by Doug Murray and Frank Cho
Art by Axel Medellin

50 Girls 50 is a fun science fiction adventure comic with art by the current artist of Elephantmen.  Story-wise, it reminds me of a free-wheeling all-girl version of the early days of Fear Agent (whatever happened to that book?).

A group of all-female scientists have been sent on a resource-gathering mission through a wormhole for five years.  Now they are sent to return to Earth, hopefully with their ship full of bounty.  As they come out of their wormhole, however, they find themselves orbiting a different planet.

Two women go to check it out, and are soon running from giant insects, as something in the atmosphere melts their gear (including the plastic stitching in their uniforms).  Yes, we are in cheesecake territory, but it's still a fun comic, with some decent character work and great art.

What I don't understand though, are the basic premises of the series.  How would one ship be able to gather, in five years, enough of any material to help a planet choked by overpopulation and lack of resources?  In the text piece at the back of the book, co-writer Doug Murray says that only 50 women had the necessary triple-x chromosome that would allow them through wormholes, yet the comic makes it sound like any woman can do this.  Also, throughout the promotional material for this series, it keeps referring to "10 Ships. 50 Women".  Well, if there are ten ships, the other 9 never come up.  Also, the one in this comic has at least 6 women on board, making the math not work for the others.

I know a lot of this is minor quibbling, considering that I enjoyed the comic, but it is this lack of proper editing and oversight that gets on my nerves with some Image comics.  I like things to be clear.