“Jill Trent: Science Sleuth” #2 Drops Today and is More Science Crime Fighting Fun

After a successful first release, Jill Trent: Science Sleuth is back for Issue 2! Nominated for a Geekie award for Best Comic/Graphic Novel, the original issue released in May 2015 to wide acclaim. (You can read my review of Issue 1 here.) Now for 2016, we’ve got another one. To fill you in, back in the 1940s Jill Trent solved crimes in comic books with the help of her sidekick, and occasionally implied girlfriend, Daisy Smythe. She’s been resurrected by editor D.M. Higgins, who’s again collected 3 author/artist teams to keep Jill in ink. All of the features of the first issue are here: a great Golden Age look and feel, 3 different Jill Trent stories with different versions of who Jill can be, and plenty of ass-kicking sassy women heroes using their brains and their fists to catch bad guys. The first story, “The Mystery of the Music from Space” features Jill and Daisy on the trail of a disappeared space probe.

The story is both scientifically complicated and emotionally charged, built on a platinum record similar to the Voyager Golden Record in the 1977 Voyager spacecraft. In the end, the mystery wraps into a touching romance that almost made this Jill Trent by favorite of all. (Jill Trent in rocket boots from Issue #1 still takes the prize with me.) The second story, “Who Atomized Professor Van Diana?”, is a direct follow up to the “Hearts of Steel” story from Issue #1. This and the third story, “Fianchetto’s Gambit,” built out like a chess game, are both clever and enterta…