Synopsis: HIT-GIRL’S IN ROME. Mindy races around the ancient city in hot pursuit of an airport cargo thief and their stolen loot. When Hit-Girl finally gets hold of the package, she uncovers a macabre story that leads her deep into the dark, criminal underbelly of Rome.

Review: Issue 9 of Hit-Girl brings us a new writer and artist in the form of Rafael Albuquerque and Rafael Scavone. Albuquerque pulls double duty as both writer and artist. The location moves from Canada to Rome.

The Story

The story starts when Hit-Girl is working in the planes cargo hold doing a bit of freelance security work. When she gets into an altercation with a thief. Hit-Girl is knocked unconscious and awakes to find herself in Rome.

In Rome, she does the complete opposite of what the Roman’s do and creates havoc within minutes of arriving as she chases down the thief in order to try and get the bag back.

While this is all going on. We’re slowly introduced to a new villain called Donna Giustina. A nun hiding out in a Nunnery, but she is far from devout or holy.

The Artwork

The artwork from Rafael Albuquerque really pops off the page.

Hit-Girl, who is probably in her mid-teens by now visibly looks a little less child-like and has a steely determination written all over her face. Especially when this thief gets the better of her.

The chase sequence involving the car and moped is well drawn. We get a nice page of Hit-Girl on the moped, which is followed up with a full page of the thief driving the car. These two pages alone made me do a double take and look again because they stood out so well from the book.

Overall

This is a strong first issue of Hit-Girl’s Rome adventure.

I like how the writer and artist have structured the story so we do not know who the big bad is from the first page. I loved how they introduced us to Donna Giustina and I also liked the fact that someone got the better of Hit-Girl.

Overall. I’m definitely in for the next issue to see how this will pan out.