Alexia fights back for her honor and her life.
Creative Staff
Story: Gail Carriger
Art/Adaptation: Rem/Priscilla Hamby
What They Say
Condemned by society and her werewolf husband due to a pregnancy she cannot explain, Alexia Maccon – preternatural, tea aficionado – seeks an explanation for this “infant inconvenience” so as to cleanse her sullied reputation and prove her fool of a husband wrong. Preternaturals are a rare breed and the only history of their kind lies in Italy with the Templars, a group that once partnered with preternaturals to hunt down werewolves and vampires. Will Alexia find an explanation for her impossible offspring? Or do the Templars have other plans for the curious “Soulless One”?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
When we last left Alexia in the comic adaptation of the Parasol Protectorate series, she was in ‘a state.’ That state was being tossed out by her stubborn husband and family after it became known she was with child. Being in the unusual relationship that she is, it’s unthinkable that she would be able to become pregnant from her husband. Unless, of course, she was having an affair.
The infuriating part, for Alexia and the reader, is that Conall didn’t believe her fidelity. The story opens with Alexia furious that the whole world has turned against her when she knows that she hasn’t been unfaithful. Even the queen no longer has desire for her anti-supernatural services. She turns to the only people that she can trust in gathering some proof that children can occur between a soulless and a werewolf, her closest friends.
Her estranged husband, however, is acting very childish and leaves all of his work to his second while he goes on a weeklong bender. I really feel for Professor Lyall through this misadventure. He just looks put upon throughout the whole thing, and I have to hand it to the artist REM, she even makes him look annoyed in wolf form. He’s stuck babysitting his boss and leader throughout the whole mess, as well as trying to solve the mystery of where Akeldama had disappeared off to when Alexia needed his assistance the most.
To Conall’s credit, he does almost instantly regret what he said to his wife and seeks to make amends, except by the time he gets around to it Alexia is already halfway to Italy. Alexia is very aware that the Templar’s are perhaps the only ones with records as to what happens to the child of a preternatural. What she’s not aware of is their utter hostility, especially since she thought her father had been on good terms with them. Dovetailing nicely into the history of the English split from the Catholic church is Carriger’s division of the acceptance of the supernatural humans and their nonacceptance along the same territorial divide. Italy is staunchly anti-vampire and werewolf, and the Templar’s view Alexia as some sort of threat to their very souls. In fact, they like to use ‘soulless’ people as weapons and don’t care if that weapon is in a living or dead state.
Along the way Alexia, Madame Lafoux, and Alexia’s family butler Floote meet with a scientist and are pursued by angry vampire servants who want her dead. The journey is filled with improbably escapes by all manner of steampunk-style contraptions and a gondola scene which would make James Bond jealous. While not always on the friendliest terms with the Vampires, it’s insane to think that anyone would approve of the call to put a hit on her. That brings us back to the missing Akeldama.
Trying to cram a sizable prose book into a comic adaptation inevitably results in some piece of the plot suffering. In this volumes case, it’s the b-plot with the vampires. It turns out there is a hostage situation, and Lord Akeldama was forced by some rules of vampire society into being otherwise occupied. The hostage ends up being Biffy, Akeldama’s boy-toy and admire, and the end result is a mess of a shootout down by the river. The whole situation comes out of nowhere, and I felt like I should have known who the bad guy was but couldn’t recall if he was present in previous volumes. There are casualties and some unforeseen consequences, but it mostly serves as a reason for keeping the men folk separated from the ladies down south. Suffice to say, it was disjointed and lacking some details, but it does provides ample backside shots of the men, for which I am greatful.
Yup, it wouldn’t be Soulless without some random nudity. Nudity in prose is easy to get away with, but once you add pictures it gets a bit tricky. REM manages to use a lot of creative scene blocking and panel composition to keep a full frontal situation from happening with the werewolves in the cast. Of course for those who prefer the ladies being in a state of disrobement, Alexia spends much of the later half of the volume is a very low cut dress. Heck, Lafoux even gets in on that action! And then there’s the reunion and belated honeymoon for the couple at the end.
Yes, there’s a happy ending at the end of all this, but one with many lingering questions. Alexia is back in the good graces of the queen, and Akaldama gets a promotion. Alexia is confident in the knowledge that the child she carries, no matter what threat it poses, is safe for the time being. However, the true nature of the child is left one of many variables, and the Templars are still out there along with some no doubt angry vampires, but those are troubles for another day.
In Summary
The third and final volume of the Soulless series goes out with a bang. There are gunfights and all sorts of baddies to be avoided and thwarted in this volume, and Alexia and her friends put them all in their places. Alexia and Conall have more adventures in their future, mostly of the parenting kind, but the immediate threat to life and limb, and love, has been put to rest. Although suffering from some of the condensed pacing issues that the first two books did, it remains a shining example of how to do an book-to-comic adaptation right. I’m sad to see that this version of the story, at least as of the time I’m writing this, is stopping here. It stands alone on it’s own as a great graphic novel series, with fantastic art and fun characters, and the way it’s been handled should please existing fans of the novel series. In fact, it’s inspired me to go read the novels to get the full story. I can’t think of any praise higher than that!
Content Grade: A –
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B +
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: November 19th, 2013
MSRP: $13.00