11 Years Later, One of the Best Sci-Fi Comics of All-Time Needs To Come Back

Science fiction is a great genre and that’s even better news for comics fans because there are some great sci-fi comics. With everything from space exploration to time travel to mysterious super powers (and we’re not talking about superheroes here), the sci-fi genre has something for everyone on the comic book page. But in 2014, one of the best sci-fi comics ever debuted and 11 years on, it’s a masterpiece of storytelling that continues to be relevant. There just hasn’t been a new issue since 2017 and we need it back now more than ever.

The comic in question is Bitch Planet. Published by Image Comics from writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Valentine De Landro between December 2014 and April 2017, the original Bitch Planet series ran for 10 issues before getting a five-issue limited series between June and October 2017. The book, set in a world where women who have been imprisoned for being “non-compliant” are set to an off-planet prison called the Auxiliary Compliance Outpost, is a feminist examination of the exploitation film genre. It’s a well-written, expertly drawn book that takes on difficult subjects and is at times challenging to read as it force the read to confront difficult questions. The series was well-received critically and had a devoted fanbase but went on hiatus after its tenth issue.

Why Bitch Planet Was An All Time Great

Even with just 10 issues (and the five-issue anthology-style limited series Bitch Planet: Triple Feature that featured different writers and artists), Bitch Planet was one of the best sci-fi series of not just its time but beyond and much of that can be credited to how it approached the narrative of female oppression. The characters in Bitch Planet go encompass a large range of different people with different degrees of privilege and explored the experiences of different races and genders. The book’s central characters are Black: Kamau “Kam” Kogo who is a former athlete made to form a squad to play gladiator-style games to entertain privileged men back on earth, Kamau’s sister Muenda “Morrow” Kogo who is in a separate facility housed with other transgender women, Penelope “Penny” Rolle, a gender non-conforming, tall, fat powerhouse, and Eleanor Doane, the intellectual “President Bitch”. By centering the story around these characters, it allows for a story that is broader than what we typically see in dystopian fiction that deals with gender and oppression.

It also serves as commentary. While similar sci-fi dystopias centered around gender and oppression, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, touch on how women hold other women down, Bitch Planet is much more direct. While the white women in Bitch Planet are also oppressed, they’re also contributing to the oppression. The wives of the mostly white male political ruling class are seen wearing long pink gowns that present them as soft and feminine, juxtaposed against the short yellow and hypersexualized dresses that the Black and brown women are forced into wearing while working in the series’ second issue. They may look like they are being treated better, like they are being elevated, but they are also ignoring the mistreatment of their fellow women. It’s noteworthy that the wives wear fashionable masks, stylishly silent as though it’s a reminder that if they speak up, they, too could be discarded like their “non-compliant” counterparts. It’s also something that is more directly suggested in the series’ first issue, when a privileged white woman actually is discarded and killed at the ACO because her husband had an affair with a younger woman and replaced her.

Bitch Planet Had So Many More Stories To Tell And We Need It Back

While there were a lot of rich concepts and commentary in Bitch Planet’s story, it was also a great story. By the time we got to issue #10, a revolution was underway and that last issue ended on a massive cliffhanger with the revelation of a very unexpected participant in the fight against the patriarchy — Kylie Sarah Josephson, the daughter of Father of Media Edward Josephson. With a privileged white woman in on the revolution, the story was about to take a massive turn and the conclusion of issue #10 promised we’d get Kylei’s story next. And then we didn’t. Bitch Planet went on hiatus and it’s been there ever since. There have been a few attempts at the book coming back — DeConnick at one point in 2020 said the book would be returning — but so far, nothing has manifested. And that’s unfortunate, because there are so many stories to tell.

Not only do we need Kylie’s story and to find out how she ended up as part of the revolution plot, but finding out simply what happens next more broadly is necessary as well. The women went to great lengths to get Eleanor Doane back into a position to exert her power as the former leader of the free world and while it was a major first step, the world is not ever changed overnight. Even simply going beyond the stories in Bitch Planet, the book feels timelier than ever. In the years since Bitch Planet’s last issue came out, Roe v. Wade was overturned, something that many see as a major development as a shift in women’s rights. With the political and cultural landscape feeling so uncertain, stories like Bitch Planet are necessary. Hopefully we’ll get more, soon.

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