2 out of 5

Conceptually improving on the limited scope of the original… but ultimately succumbing to the same limitations.

The original Nancy mini-series was caught between an attempt to be exploitation pablum and some kind of lore-touched contemplation on fate and black and white morality; writer El Torres is certainly smart enough to know to pursue something grand when your lead is in a leather bra and Daisy Dukes and likes calling people bitches when she chops ’em up with her chainsaw, but he seemed to balk on going full cheesecake and tried to add some depth and backstory which only hollowed out any lasting sense of fun or impact.  This was compacted with cluttered art from Juan Jose Ryp, and a color scheme that, due to the setting of Hell, could only be shades of red, giving the book a flatness, even amidst all the detailing and flying viscera.  This same wishy-washyness kept an undercurrent of “what if…” throughout the series, which landed it on a promising ending: Nancy and fallen angel Lucifer have made it out of Hell and back to Earth.  Alas, they left the gates open…

Hence our well-named sequel, which picks up right afterward.  The tone is a bit more balanced, because the series is now buffered by the human folk trying to survive this apocalypse: police and army are attempting to gather people toward “safe” points while Hell-borne kotaku rage everywhere; Nancy and Lucifer tag along for the ride.  Soon enough, wouldn’t ya know, angels are taking issue with things as they are, and streaming on to the planet through their own gate, which would be great if it didn’t turn out they they have massive contempt for human kind, and don’t really care if the “monkeys” get in the way of their slaughtering of demons.

This is a fun, blood-soaked idea, and new artist Enrique Lopez Lorenzana – while enjoying between-the-legs shots and big-areola angels – combines Ryp’s detailing with a much better sense of page flow and in-panel balance, with the now Earthly setting allowing Fran Gamboa’s colors to really shine.  So the book starts to more effectively look and feel like the over-the-top campfest I think it was always intended to be.

And then the story.  The demon that trapped Nancy in Hell in the first place becomes important; Torres trips over himself trying to justify Lucifer’s part in this; he lampshades that all of the angels and blond, E+-cupped lasses; he tries more lore.  And while bits and pieces of this work in isolation (except the lampshading…), none of it fits together very well, and it again hollows out both the characters and the camp.

Alas, again again, he drops us into a really intriguing ending.  …And so we have another Nancy mini-series (excepting the forced Savage Dragon crossover one-shot) on its way.

The trade has some alternate covers, I think, but is otherwise barebones.  The price does reflect that, though, so it’s a reasonable way to pick this stuff up.