The beautiful woman with the grey beard is back in the real world. She’s getting a shave...sort of. But there’s a hell of a lot more going on than her next kill. All of the leprechaun gold has run out, and now she can’t stay at the apartment she’d been living in. She’s on the run, and she’s running into another ostensibly fictional member of the royalty in Cinderella vs. the Queen of Hearts #1. Writer Dave Franchini gives his 3-part Disney-princess-by-way-of-Harley-Quinn a breezy action comedy lead-in with artist Jordi Tarragona and colorist Robby Bevard.

Cinderella has to hang glide out of a high rise to escape the police. All she has is the katana on her back, but she’ll land on her feet. That’s her name getting top billing on the front of the book. She finds herself on a direct path to tangle with the Queen of Hearts--a rather vicious agent with a death trap of a hideout. Cinderella isn’t going to have much difficulty with the homicidal obstacle course ahead of her. She is, however, going to have a great deal of difficulty with the queen herself. It’s guns-versus-katana in a combat that will find the two deadly warriors reluctantly drawn together.

Franchini keeps the action moving between the two title characters with a sinister villain lurking in the background. The dialogue is pretty weak. The action is largely unimaginative. The two title characters, however, come across as looking pretty cool given the overall visual concepts that propel them across page and panel. The comedy in the action comedy is probably the weakest point for what could be an otherwise entertaining book under the right circumstances. As it is, it seems like Franchini would have an easier time drawing in the reader if there was a bit more weight beyond the comedy. 

Both characters have a very distinctive and very appealing visual presence on the page. Tarragona flings the two title characters at each other with style and grace. It all feels like it has the right amount of gravity to keep the two from completely destroying each other. The bigger concerns of a larger villain feel intense as well. Bevard’s colors lend the action a cool and stylish atmosphere that gives the opening issue of the series a lot more swagger than it probably deserves.

With the initial encounter out of the way, Franchini and company can now dive right into the heart of a body action comedy, which should have a slick visual appeal that will give it a great deal of momentum leading through the final two issues of the series. Given the right angles, both of the leads could even gather a bit more substance before the series hits its final panel in a couple of months. There may not be much going on in the story after 30 pages or so, but the series can only improve now that all of the main pieces appear to be in play. 

Grade: C+