Among other comics I've been catching up with was Punchline - no, not the DC title, this one's a creator-owned title via Antarctic Press, written by Bill Williams who I recognize as a writer /inker/editor from Lone Star Press, a Austin based small press that was operating in in the late 90s to early 00s, and on art duties for most issues is Matthew Weldon, whose work I had seen in small press titles - it's an episodic take on the superhero mentors a successor sort of story but with some interesting takes on it - the mentor is a former superpowered crimefighter who worked in the shadows, the protege is a teenager who wants to use her newfound powers to do right, but besides the age gap, these two ladies' relationship is at turns adversarial, as they have somewhat differing philosophies on how to handle crime.
Mel had lost her powers suddenly after years of refusing to pass them on to a successor, and at an inopportune time, a run in with an old enemy over an artifact she'd been searching for left her bleeding and staggering through a cemetery in her old hometown of Seaholm, a (fictional) RI city, where she runs into teenager Jessie McGrath, who had come out there for some quiet time to sketch and get away from "family drama". A suggestion is made, and Mel is saved after passing on her powers, and now is working to school her new student in the ways of superheroing, including magic costume and appearance changes. She has a lot of gadgets and weapons collected from supervillians and others to make up for the power gap (including a teleporter) but she's still getting used to matters like actually having to deal with aches, pains and hangovers she can't just magic away. The new hero, Jessie, who takes on the alter ego of "Versema" is sometimes exasperated by her mentor's methods, and things come close to being severed between them in issue 5, but after some bumps along the road, they manage to iron things out, mostly. Eventually, Mel reveals who her employers are and that Jessie is now part of a venerable tradition of female warriors, the Daughters of Hercules.
The more recent issues, 16 and 17, had other people on art duties - 16 features art with that early 00s Amerimanga look to it that I wasn't sold on, but the story was still compelling enough - someone's put a 200 million dollar contract on Versema, and she refuses to take a week off if that means being unable to help out with crime or disasters, though that kind of money brings out the superpowered professionals who keep under the radar, as Mel tries to hit up her contacts in the supervillain underground for clues - 17 features artwork that's on more solid ground for me, a simple story of Versema and another local super, Atomic Butterfly, having gone undercover as crew at a metal concert, where quickly another roadie reveals his plans to summon something unpleasant....
