A review by octavia_cade
Victor Lavalle's Destroyer, Volume 1 by Victor LaValle

dark emotional sad fast-paced

4.0

I read and reviewed each of the six issues collected here separately, so this is basically just for my own records. In short: I'm going to have to get my own copy of this to keep, because I got this from the library and I want my own. I love Frankenstein, so I'm always willing to read any interpretations of it, and Destroyer - which reimagines Victor as Dr. Josephine Baker, who rebuilds her twelve year old son Akai after he is shot to death by police in an instance of racial violence - is fantastic. It's so good, and Josephine and Akai are drawn so strongly, that I genuinely don't care about the original monster when it turns up. It does so, periodically, and I almost wished that it would go away so that the focus would remain strongly on that mother-son relationship.

There are so many elements here that work so well: that focus on police (and societal) violence against Black kids, the twist as to the identity and function of the Bride, who benefits from ignorance, the really excellent art... I want my own copy. I do.