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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
I've sort of lost the thread of the story. Not that there was much of one to begin with, more like an overarching idea that solidifies from panel to panel but I'm in the weeds now.
At least the pictures are pretty!
At least the pictures are pretty!
Plenty engrossing, and advancing the plot and characters in a satisfying way, but not quite as other-worldly as the first two volumes.
O oOOOh the ending!! ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ Oh so good oh what will happen? And bravo there are so many Black Women in these last two books it has made me so damn happy
Empieza dubitativo pero va subiendo en intensidad hasta un buen final. Y qué dibujo.
This series is amazing and I still love it dearly, but it's just getting to the point where I often have no idea what is going on and I'm not sure if that's on me or the author [or maybe a bit of both]. And there's a thing in the front of each volume that has character descriptions but it's of the characters that you DEFINITELY already know who they are [Maika, Ren, etc] whereas I'm trying to remember all these 500 side characters who all look vaguely alike and are all apparently up to something sinister. I still love the world and the art and just Maika as a character in general, but I'm starting to lose the thread of the overall plot so I hope it becomes more coherent soon. I think many comic writers lose sight of the fact that often their readers haven't picked up a title in over 6 months [since the last volume] so they kind of need a bit of a refresher a lot of the time.
This one wasn't quite as good as the second. Still gorgeous, still involved, but the pacing was off and some of the scenes got a big jumbled looking.
CONTENT WARNINGS (just a list of topics):
Things to love:
It's the same things. If you've made it this far into the series, you love the world, the characters, the story and the art. Nothing to sneeze at there.
Things I didn't quite love:
-Hard to follow. I know that long black hair is indicative of lineage and race and all that, but when ALL the big players have the same style with slightly different outfits, fights can get a bit hard to follow.
-Muddied action. The color palate was so muted here that I really couldn't figure out which tentacles and eyes belonged to who and what they were doing with them as easily as I would have liked.
-Opaque character motivations. I can't tell if I'm just forgetting that much from volume 1 or if maybe some of the realizations the characters had weren't as obvious as they were meant to be.
-Pacing issue. Things ramp FAST here. I notice this a lot with graphic novels--I get it, doing that much art is EXPENSIVE and time consuming, but when you can go three pages from "oh no, we're all gonna die" to "oh hey we're all saved!" it's...a bit too quick to appreciate. Also, this one felt like it had a lot more Tam-Tam in it, so we go from these rapid fire action sequences to long cat lectures on the reg.
I still enjoyed it, and am very much looking forward to the fourth one. Giving this 4 stars even though it's the weakest of the bunch so far, because by standards outside of its own, it's still superlative.
CONTENT WARNINGS (just a list of topics):
Spoiler
body horror, child abuse, coercion of will, discussion of slavery and war atrocity.Things to love:
It's the same things. If you've made it this far into the series, you love the world, the characters, the story and the art. Nothing to sneeze at there.
Things I didn't quite love:
-Hard to follow. I know that long black hair is indicative of lineage and race and all that, but when ALL the big players have the same style with slightly different outfits, fights can get a bit hard to follow.
-Muddied action. The color palate was so muted here that I really couldn't figure out which tentacles and eyes belonged to who and what they were doing with them as easily as I would have liked.
-Opaque character motivations. I can't tell if I'm just forgetting that much from volume 1 or if maybe some of the realizations the characters had weren't as obvious as they were meant to be.
-Pacing issue. Things ramp FAST here. I notice this a lot with graphic novels--I get it, doing that much art is EXPENSIVE and time consuming, but when you can go three pages from "oh no, we're all gonna die" to "oh hey we're all saved!" it's...a bit too quick to appreciate. Also, this one felt like it had a lot more Tam-Tam in it, so we go from these rapid fire action sequences to long cat lectures on the reg.
I still enjoyed it, and am very much looking forward to the fourth one. Giving this 4 stars even though it's the weakest of the bunch so far, because by standards outside of its own, it's still superlative.
Monstress now has me hooked forever. Can't wait to see where the story goes from here. Also, I'm already looking forward to a re-read of this series, I'm sure I'll discover many, many things I missed the first time!
The artwork is gorgeous, and the writing is quite good, although I pity anyone trying to read this volume without having read the first two volumes. That's the problem with serialized comics--each volume is not self-contained. In fact, even though I read the first two volumes, there was enough of a gap since I read them that I was having trouble remembering what had previously happened. Maybe someday when this series is complete readers will be able to reread the whole thing and appreciate the epic world building that's been created.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"He didn't say you were a good person. He said you were a hero. There's a difference."