Ms. Tree - One Mean Mother (The First Ms. Tree Graphic Novel)

I first "met" Ms. Tree in 1982 while browsing comics at The Great Escape, the only comic store in Louisville, Kentucky of which I was aware as a 13-year old budding comic fan. Already a fan of female detectives (having grown up on Nancy Drew), and having an insatiable appetite for new comics, particularly the direct-market comics that I had only recently discovered, I could not pass up this amazing new title that showed a dark-haired women in a blue trenchcoat getting shot at.  From the very first page, I was hooked.  Absolutely LOVED Terry Beatty's art style, and for odd reasons I can't explain, I loved the lettering in the book - done exactly like a typewriter rather than the standard lettering by hand that all other comics used.  It gave the book a very hard case, gritty feel to it, and it definitely worked.  (Sadly, that lettering changed after the first few issues, and it joined the rest of the comic world with regular hand lettering.)  I was unaware that there had been a previous story serialized in the magazine, Eclipse Comics, and I later tracked those issues down.

Anyway, Ms. Tree always stuck with me, and I with her, from her transition from Eclipse Comics (her original publisher) to Aardvark-Vanaheim, and later to Renegade Press.  When Renegade cancelled the series with issue 50, I was disheartened, but later thrilled when I learned that DC Comics was picking up the series as a quarterly title with more pages!  Unfortunately, that only lasted 10 issues, and in 1993, Ms. Tree appeared to have left the world forever...

In 2007, her creator Max Allan Collins brought Ms. Tree back with a novelized version of Ms. Tree's first story (although it is not an exactly copy of the comic story) under the Hard Case Crime label of books. I'm not sure how well that did, but no further novels were published, so I'm guessing it did not do so well.

Flash-forward to 2019, and Titan Comics, which publishes a number of creator-owned works, as well as licensed products such as Doctor Who, Tank Girl, and others, finally picked up the mantel and published the first collection of Ms. Tree stories in comic form in over 25 years!  Interestingly enough, rather than start at the beginning with the Eclipse Comics' stories, Collins decided to start off with the DC Comics' stories (as Collins puts it, he wanted to lead off with his best stories).  One Mean Mother gives readers a look into the gritty world of Ms. Tree after she has been at this for years - her husband gone, his son now her own after his mother was killed, her vendetta against Dominic Muerta seemingly over since he was dead, and her private investigation business flourishing. But, of course, nothing ever stays calm for long in the world of Ms. Tree...

This first collection features the stories from Ms. Tree Quarterly #1, #4, #7, #8, and #9.  The introduction by Collins indicates that the remaining five stories from the DC Comics' run will be included in the second collection, along with a key story from the Renegade Press run that helps with the flow of continuity for those tales.  I find this to be a bit odd, since the Ms. Tree stories have always been sequential - while each multi-part story (in the pre-DC years) and each issue (in the DC years) held a complete story in and of itself, there were always subplots that continued within the book from issue to issue, and elements of one story definitely had repercussions in future stories.  However, Collins has proven his strength as a writer with this series over the years, so I trust his judgment.

The first story, "Gift of Death," features the return of Dominique Muerta, the sister of mafia crime lord Dominic Muerta, the man who orchestrated the death of Ms. Tree's husband all those years ago.  The story is rooted in Ms. Tree's history, and in a twist of fate, when Dominique is murdered, it is up to Ms. Tree to find out who killed her.  It's the second story, thought, "Drop Dead Handsome," that really sets the overall theme for this collection - in this story, Ms. Tree comes face-to-face with a man from her past - an old high school sweetheart that she thought was long-gone history.  He shows an interest in her once again, and it is clear that his wife has some emotional issues.  William Powers tells Ms. Tree his marriage is all but over, and she sleeps with him - only to be confronted by his wife, who pulls a gun on them both.  Protecting herself, Ms. Tree shoots and kills the woman.  Of course, every story has its twists and turns, and Ms. Tree soon finds that William Powers is not everything he pretends to be. 

The next story, "The Family Way," drops the most unexpected bombshell that Ms. Tree readers would ever see.  She faces a case that is very personal, as her son Mike's girlfriend has been kidnapped.  It happens that his girlfriend is the daughter of the late Dominique Muerta!  But that doesn't stop Ms. Tree from doing what must be done, and after facing down the madman behind the kidnapping, she discovers something in the very last panel that I have no doubt stunned readers when it was first published. "Why, Ms. Tree," said the doctor, "surely you knew...you're at least three months' pregnant..."

Wow, talk about a major, life-changing cliffhanger!  That was issue 7 from the DC run, and this collection features the remaining two issues, 8 and 9 - "Maternity Leave," in which a very pregnant Ms. Tree must try and determine who is out to kill her, and "One Mean Mother," in which Ms. Tree has to track down the man that shot her sister and kidnapped her child. Even pregnant and then a mother, Ms. Tree never changes in her true character - she still protects the innocent, she still has no problem making criminals pay, and she will always do whatever is necessary for the sake of her family (both literal and figurative).

It was such a joy to re-read these stories, and while I remember so much of the earlier runs of Ms. Tree being topical (pornography, rape, child abuse, etc.), the more personal stories of this collection still have the Ms. Tree feel to them - and they certainly have the violence and vengeance in full spades!  I'm honestly surprised that over the years we have never seen a movie or television series based on this character, as these stories definitely feel cinematic in nature.  Who knows, maybe with these collections coming out, someone will pick up on it!

Now if we can just figure out a way to get Collins and Beatty to work on some new Ms. Tree stories...

RATING:  10 class reunion themed parties out of 10 for bringing Ms. Tree back into the comic world and giving new readers an opportunity to enjoy this amazing work of writing and art!