The next phase gets underway.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marjorie Liu
Art: Sana Takeda
What They Say:
Maika, Kippa, and Ren journey to Thyria in search of answers to her past… and discover a new, terrible, threat.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Having enjoyed the first six issues of Monstress I ended up forgetting to get back into it after the hiatus it had last spring before returning in the fall. That just means that I get to read a few issues in a row without waiting months between. Liu and Takeda really won me over in that first run of issues in establishing a dense world with a lot going on but allowing us to really connect with the characters. It made clear Liu’s background in novel writing and world building but bonded perfectly with the kind of visual design that Takeda brought to it, giving it something so rich and thought out that it’s almost a bit boggling. Thankfully, it was more than just world-building as we had a lot of things introduced early on with characters, action, motivations, and teases of larger stories unfolding that go back quite a ways.
Reconnecting with this after some time is a bit difficult since there are so many things going on. We get some side focus pieces that’ll have greater impact with someone discovering that Maika is Moriko’s daughter and we get to see Ren involved in some of the “political” aspects of being his kind and the impact of what he did recently in relation to Maika. But the bulk of it really is focused on Maika and how she’s acting at this stage while in Thyria looking for answers in where she came from. With her mother having left some two years prior there are still plenty of things she can investigate and look into thanks to Kippa and his sense of smell, something that she has to use in a forceful way to get the results she wants from the little fox. You do feel bad for Kippa but it serves to show how focused Maika is at this stage in dealing with what’s in her and how she’ll use anyone to achieve her goals. That certainly extends to Ren as well as we see just how far she goes in allowing him to be tortured.
Where this series expands up things is when while in the city being watched by those in power, Maika and the others end up in the hands of the Brothers Imura. These beast-types are interesting just in their appearance with the mix of human and animal but there’s a deep bond that exists between Maika and Seizi that she’s trying to capitalize on, particularly since he’s responsible in some way for what happened to her mother on the Isle of Bones. Through their conversations we get more of a look into Maika’s past and Seizi’s hope for her to be free of the violence she’s in, and the burdens of her mother, but Maika makes clear that much of what she’s dealing with is because of it all and she has no choice but to see it through to completion. I really like the dynamic between her and Seizi since he also finds a way to get through to her briefly with a rare hug and that definitely helps to ease off the kind of tense persona that she’s been so wrapped up in.
In Summary:
Reconnecting with Monstress wasn’t hard but it definitely took a bit before certain things started coming back to me. It’s the kind of series where you really should re-read what’s come before but it’s also kind of daunting because of how much is put into each issue that it would take a considerable amount of time to re-soak up all the material. This issue works good as a quasi-launching point with its smaller focus on Maika and those around her without going deep into the woods with other characters elsewhere and that helped to make it feel a lot more cohesive. Liu’s craft is pretty damn strong here and the pairing with Takeda just makes it utterly brilliant to watch unfold. It’s so easy to get lost within the details of the pages and forget the story because of what she does here. I can’t recommend it enough, though I’ll continue to say that this is a series you want in trades for the most part.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Image Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: October 12th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
