Comic Book Review: Athena Voltaire and the Volcano Goddess by Steve Bryant
Our story opens in Malaysia, as premiere pilot and adventurer Athena Voltaire and British agent Desmond Forsyth deal with a recently hatched garuda (a gargoyle-like creature.) Once that’s taken care of, Athena heads back to California for a debriefing by her secret patron, millionaire Caine Foster. And then, a night at the movies as the new film The Adventures of Athena Voltaire is having its big opening at El Capitan Theater.
Athena is not overly impressed; the adventure depicted is on target, but the scriptwriters gave her an entirely different backstory. That doesn’t carry over in her treatment of male lead actor Carter Charles, who she agrees to a drink with–after she talks to her father, the Great Voltaire, retired stage magician.
It seems the elder Voltaire has come into possession of a necklace called Pele’s Tears, fashioned from volcanic glass. Legend has it that this talisman can be used to gain access through Pele’s volcano home to the Hollow Earth. It’s also claimed that the necklace has become contaminated during its long time away from Hawaii, and needs to be taken home to cleanse it.
The Great Voltaire imposes on his daughter to transport the talisman back to Hawaii, but there are those who would use it for evil, including Major Klimt of the Thule Society. Let the action begin!
This is the latest published adventure of Athena Voltaire, with the earlier continuity being collected in the Athena Voltaire Compendium. It ran as a three issue miniseries from Action Lab before being collected into this volume.
Good: I enjoyed the art and action, which is very much in the pulp tradition. Carter Charles makes a decent sidekick, and I especially liked the Hawaiian police detective based on Chang Apana (also the inspiration for Charlie Chan.) The story moved along at a good clip without becoming confusing. There are a couple of text pieces on fictional aviatrixes and stage magicians. This volume does not require you to have read the previous stories to understand.
Not so good: My main gripe is a presentation issue–this volume is exactly the three individual issues bound together, including the house ads for each issue, which results in duplicated pages. I would have preferred the ads to be shifted to the back, and duplicates eliminated.
I also felt the stinger scene was a trifle too obvious and ill-explained.
Recommended to fans of small press pulp adventurer comics.
