Rindis.com

This is a straight reprint of the second half of the Gold Digger B/W series, so its another ~600-page volume reprinting issues 26-50. Unfortunately, it does suffer from there being two cross-overs and one spin-off during this period that aren’t in here. Those should be fixed with volumes 2 and 3 of the color remaster, which is the primary thing making me think about getting them (along with the slowly ageing newsprint).

Again, there’s a lot of single-issue stories in here, but there’s some bigger ones too. Most notably, the Dynasty storyline takes a fair chunk of the volume, as things kick off in issue 30, and it runs through 38. However, the first half or so of that is the main characters getting distracted by other problems that crop up at the same time as El Dorado suddenly disappearing. And, it turns out that events in Asrial vs Cheetah (a two-issue Ninja High School crossover) kicked off this storyline before issue 30 (it’s not actually directly plot related, but it will be in the remaster).

While Stripe goes to save his people’s homeworld, Gina and the rest end up having to save themselves from the return of Dr Peachbody from the first volume. Time Warp is the place where the Brick really falls down, as it was an interleaved story of four issues of GD and four of NHS, so there’s gaps here (this is the second-biggest reason I’m looking at the remaster), so there’s holes in the story here. Thankfully, the original issues actually have decent recaps of the previous NHS issue’s action, so it can still be followed, except that part 8 was in NHS…. After that wraps up it still takes a couple issues to focus on the Dynasty, and then that fight actually wraps up in a couple issues.

The other big story is Beta, which starts in Gold Digger Beta #1, which was going to be a color spin-off series running concurrently with the main one. However, after one issue the new story was folded into the main series while plans were made to transition to color full-time (and getting Beta #1 in there is the biggest reason I’m looking at the remaster). At the same time, Brianna and a couple others set out to Jade, and that actually turns into a bigger story that’s just as important.

In fact, a lot of this volume relies on Perry handling multiple on-going stories, and he generally succeeds. I feel that the Dynasty got too stretched out by all the things allowed to interrupt it as it gets going, but it does work as a story. During the later part, Perry experiments a bit more with layouts (which have always had a very dynamic manga-influced style), with a page with a single small panel in the center, and one two-page spread that goes sideways (he needed all the height he could get for it, and it works very well).

Things largely devolve back to single-issue adventures at the end of the volume/series, but Perry continues juggling old villains (Dark Bird), and introducing new ones, such as the wererats and Gothwrain, who becomes one of the main problems in the future.