Essential Painkiller Jane

    (Dynamite, 2007)
™ and © Dynamite Entertainment

This collection, published in 2007 by Dynamite Entertainment to coincide with the new Sci-Fi Channel television series of the same name, collects issues #0-5 (the entire run) of the original Painkiller Jane series published by Event Comics in 1995. In this book one can see the origins of Jane, an interesting character in the comic-book world because, although she’s basically indestructible, she doesn’t have any other powers—in fact, although nothing can kill her, she still hurts a lot. These early adventures find Jane mostly taking on the scum of the New York underworld, from drug lords to mob bosses to rat kings who live in the sewers. There’s a litany of comics talent on display here; in this volume, one can see early work from Joe Quesada (current Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics) and Jimmy Palmiotti (currently writing something like twenty books a month, or so it seems), as well as some great scripts turned in by Brian Augustyn and Mark Waid (the team from JLA: Year One).

— Eric Garneau
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