Martha Stewart: The Comic

Look up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane! It's Martha Stewart!

"Female Force: Martha Stewart" is the latest comic book release from Bluewater Productions. I pictured colorful panel drawings of our super hero wearing an apron over her shoulders like a cape as she averted domestic disasters.  She could rescue apple pies from burning ovens, fight grime with homemade cleaners, battle and then tie-up her nemesis with a festive bow.

But no.  The monthly Female Force series is more akin to a 32-page graphic biography. Past subjects have included Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and Sarah Palin.  The company says it  examines how Martha Stewart "simultaneously and successfully projected an image of sweetness and light, while at the same time allegedly betraying some of her closest friends on her way to the top."

That makes her sound like Cat Woman,  the Joker or that scary Classic Comics I read as a kid  about a smiling court jester whose face, we learn, had been tragically cut into a permanent grin disguising the fact that he despised the very people he so cheerfully entertained.  I was worried that Martha Stewart was  like that. Please, please don't tell me she actually eats from paper take-out cartons, sleeps on 180-thread count sheets, and sneers at her fans and their pathetic attempts to replicate her recipes!

“Our goal is to show the behind-the scenes machinations - many of them ignored by the mainstream media - that resulted in Martha Stewart becoming the phenomenon she is," says publisher Darren G. Davis.

That even includes her stint behind bars. This is reality, people, reality with thought bubbles.

"Female Force: Martha Stewart"  is $3.99 at comic book shops, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

Alas, it contains no back page ads for sea monkeys and X-ray vision glasses.