Review: Punk Mambo #4 (of 5)

Cullen Bunn is a scribe ”“ a writer“s writer. You might wonder why you are seeing him credited as the wordsmith on books across every major (and many minor) comic book publishing platforms. Wonder no more. He“s that good. Case in point: Punk Mambo #4 (of 5), out this week from Valiant Comics. There have been more than a few comic books about voodoo ”“ some of them are quite good (see: Bitter Root). Others, not so much. But Punk Mambo offers a reflective and refreshing take on the well-tread world of Voodoo. Bunn“s synopsis of the main character is insightful. “A Voodoo priestess from the London Punk scene, Punk Mambo is the anarchistic problem child of attitude and rebellion.”“

Punk Mambo is a problem. She“s irreverent, rejecting all of the rules of Voodoo“s complicated practices. But she also believes in her craft. And she remains committed to the duality of Voodoo culture ”“ life and death, the visible and the invisible, pain and healing. This is an important ideology in her quest to save Voodoo from the autocratic clutches of Azaire. Azaire is Punk Mambo“s perfect nemesis. Having absolutely no magic or innate magical powers himself, he is a unique villain in the Punk Mambo world with ambitions of dominating that world by capturing and controlling all of the Voodoo gods.

Punk Mambo #4 finds our protagonist on the run and in recovery. With her partner, Josef“s help, she figures out the most efficient way to restore her strength. And make no mistake, she is a powerful figure with the ability to summon otherworldly entities from the deep dark recesses of the Voodoo spirit realm. Azaire“s minions ”“ the Tonton Macoute ”“ know this all too well. She has taken out a few of them along the way.

The Tonton Macoute are some of the spookiest looking figures in the Punk Mambo world. And they were pretty spooky figures in the real world too. Serving as the special ops unit of notorious Haitian dictator, “Papa Doc”“ Duvalier, the Tonton Macoute take their name (Uncle Gunnysack) from the Haitian mythological figure who kidnapped children and ate them. Adam Gorham“s rendering of them in Punk Mambo is just one example of his stellar art work in this exceptionally cool and well-researched miniseries.

Reading Punk Mambo gives us the sense that there are an unlimited number of ways to write about and reconstruct the worlds that comic books might reflect on the page. That sense of expansiveness and the uncanny otherworldliness of Punk Mambo can (and should) be credited to the written craftsmanship of one of the comic world“s most valuable scribes, Cullen Bunn. 4.5/5

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(W) Cullen Bunn (A) Adam Gorham (CA) Cris Delara