Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Descender, Vol. 1: Estrelas de Lata by Dustin Nguyen, Jeff Lemire

1 review

tigger89's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This review and rating pertains to all six volumes as a whole.

There were several things I enjoyed about this series, but one glaring flaw that spoiled the rest for me. I'll start with what I liked. First, the concept is incredible, and the themes were carried through well. I loved the elaboration on the events of ten years prior, as well as the different factions that emerged in the wake. I also thought that a robot child was the perfect viewpoint to explore these themes through, and was very satisfied with how that was handled. The watercolor art style, unusual for sci-fi comics, brought a pleasant soft contrast to the story.


Where I feel this fell short, however, was at the end. I got to the end of the story and was left wondering what it was all for. The plot does answer the questions posed at the start, but all of the tension regarding how the characters will carry on is passed along to the sequel series! So if I didn't read it for the plot resolution, did I at least read it for the characters? And that's where I have serious beef with this story. I'm going to try not to go into too many spoilers, but a few will be necessary to explain why I'm bothered.

So, spoiler, Andy is all grown up. Also spoiler, he's been running around working as a scrapper, an enthusiastic participant in robot genocide. Alright, that's dark, but I love some good tension. Let's resolve this. Except it's never resolved! He (spoiler) very briefly meets Tim, they hug, and that's it. There's no real reckoning with how he's spent his life. Furthermore, we meet his ex-girlfriend, who's now living with a group of cyborgs and has taken on an "artificial name", eschewing her "flesh name". Andy repeatedly uses the wrong name across multiple issues, ignoring her protests. Eventually she either gives up protesting or decides he's right, I'm honestly not sure what was up on her end. It's not so much that it's transphobic(though the flesh name thing was an obvious reference to the concept of dead names, so it's uncomfortable for sure) as it shows such a fundamental lack of respect that, on top of his other crimes, Andy has become entirely despicable to me.


So why would I want to continue reading a sequel story to find answers about a character I loathe? I get that he's supposed to be an anti-hero, but an anti-hero as bad as he is needs a hell of a lot of redemption to be palatable. And there was none of that. So, my final verdict is: incredible concept, meh plot, garbage character situation. Your mileage may vary, especially if you go in forewarned(or don't care) about the Andy issue. I'm just frustrated because there was so much that was promising and cool, and then it went the way it did!
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