There's a sly reference to the legalisation of cannabis where Kate gets a villain arrested for hit and run rather than his greenhouse full of weed.
Instead of Russian's in tracksuits, Kate's thug nemeses wear bell boy uniforms. I'm never sure if this is meant to be symbolic or literal.
The thrust of the storyline mixes a down and out in LA storyline with a continuation of the Madame Masque storyline from Volume 1.
This is the Kate Bishop solo book and is based in LA rather than New York. It lacks some of the experimentation of Volume 2, using a different artist in the form of Annie Wu but retaining writer Matt Fraction's stylistic ticks.