Our hedonistic heroine and her long-lost chum come to blows as Two Girls One Tank reaches its tear-jerking terminus. Keep the tissues handy, folks – you’re gonna need the whole box! One tank, one sub, one jet… but how many girls will live to fight another day…?

It’s an usually downbeat issue that brings this mini-series to a close, featuring a tough fist-fight between the formerly best buds Tank Girl and Sub Girl (during which the c-word is uttered with intense rage), a grim back-story for the latter character, and an incredibly gruesome gunshot to the head.

Along the way, the creative team lighten the load a little bit via the use of comical sound effects, like “Bugger! Bugger! Bugger!”, “Knocky!”, “Brunch!” and “Lunch!”, as well as a dialogue reference to Pulp Fiction: “This won’t be over until we’ve destroyed every last mother-scrubbing one of them!”

Writer Alan Martin also appears to take some inspiration from the Doctor Who story The End of Time for the dreadful booth-based dilemma faced by Tank Girl at the climax of this tale. This is followed by a dramatic dialogue-free splash page, which captures a moment of stunned and silent disbelief.

Though all hope seems lost as the survivors walk away, heads bowed, back to the sub, there is still a morsel of hope. As Jet Girl notes, “That water must’ve been near freezing.” (You’ve seen the movie The Abyss, right?) Perhaps, as Tank Girl’s adversary General Fletcher promises, “This isn’t finished.”

Before I go, I should just mention the excellent lettering in this series. Only upon reading this issue did I notice in the credits that the letters are produced not by a separate letterer, but by the artist, Brett Parson, and they’re worthy of the great artist/letterer John Costanza himself. One man, two jobs well done.

8

Richard McGinlay