MONSTRESS #44 - Review

 

I mean, I just, sigh, I mean, dude, what the hell. Like, seriously, what the hell! What the hell is going on here??? Is anybody still reading this comic book? Am I the only one? Is it like some wacky runaway hit in some far gone far flung locale like Pitcairn Island or Burkina Faso? Are fans of this series just buying the book, flipping through it to let the amazing art wash over them and then bagging it and boarding it before they get a chance to even look at the text bubbles? Look, as I said in the review of the issue prior to this one, I’m all for wackadoodle wacky trippy dippy madness when it comes to anything except my dates but someone needs to put this comic in a straight jacket.

 

We’re at the same point in this Monstress comic relationship where we would be if your girlfriend of 7 years started losing her shit and began exhibiting odd erratic behavior. Like if she just started giving herself panda eyes with her make-up and putting her hair in pigtails for the first time you’d be like ‘Honey, what’s with the new look’ and she’d react by punching you in the face for repressing her ability to express herself. Like if you came home one day and she’s yelling at a Golfer in a Golf Tournament on TV while eating a greasy BLT and you say ‘Babe, you’re Kosher and you hate golf’ and she breaks down and cries because she now realizes that you’ve never taken the time out to really get to know the ‘real’ her. It is the essence of that bonkers behavior that has made its way into this comic.

 

Again, I don’t know what’s going on with Majorie in her life but I think it’s safe to assume that she and her genius author beau Junot Diaz are having problems and she’s taking it out on this plot. Either that or she latched onto a really bad ‘Self Help Program’ that is encouraging her to release her trauma into her work. I mean, look at the art in this book now, Sana Takeda seems to be scratching and clawing her panels as if her brain is on fire. I think that’s what we should call this comic from now ‘My Brain is on Fire: The Cats Did it’.

 

Maybe since cats with multiple tails and flying abilities are such a huge part of this series it’s driven Marjorie into the loony bin. Isn’t there something that cats release into the air that’s shown to make their owners go bonkers. I know I read an article recently where a certain parasite that gets into a cat can make their owners ‘take unnecessary life threatening risks’. Maybe that’s what’s happened here. Maybe one of Marjie’s cats sent one of these parasites into our beloved author! It all makes sense now! Look, we’re in this completely ridiculous world now and how did we get here? Through the belly of a stone cat that was floating in space! I don’t think that’s purely coincidental. I think we need to accept the fact that Ms. Liue has gone Catshit Crazy.

 

Let’s just assume for a moment that this ‘Ancient God Prison Colony’ storyline where the roles of the Ancient God and Maika the female lead are reversed; he’s now the host and she’s the tethered symbiotic consciousness, it still begs the question: Why? Why are we in an ancient God prison colony after having just jumped through the belly of an intergalactic feline??? Is it to show that even Ancient Gods are oppressed? Has someone started an Ancient God Reparation petition online yet? I mean, we’re getting scenes and dialogue of Ancient Gods working the fields like we’re in a deleted scene in a cotton field from ‘Shawshank Redemption’. I can hear Morgan Freeman’s voice right now:

 

Red: Ancient Andy knew that any day now a cat would fly out of his puckered asshole. Either that or some emo girl with bangs would wrap a tentacle around his balls and drag him into a bonfire of bones. But he was still the same Ancient Andy, always smiling, always lending a squiggly tentacle hand and always ready to put you on his back and run when the Cat Spaceship appeared in the sky. That’s the Ancient Andy I’ll always remember.

 

You know, I wouldn’t mind this Star Trek type alternate planetary reality type story line if it was, oh I dunno, written AFTER we finished the main storyline. Like, if the whole plot of the war and the mask and the mystery of Zinn and a reconciliation with Momma happened then we flew into a Cat Belly, fine. But we’re on this off the wall tangential story line that has completely divorced us from the main storyline and all its characters. I mean, read the quick recap on the inside page of the main cover:

 

C’mon Marj, like WTF? I think that’s why Sana Takeda’s art is reaaaallly aggressive this issue, she’s probably jittering her hand as she draws the cat while muttering ‘What’s next??? A twelve step program for ancient Gods who have human heads attached to their foreheads??’.

 

And look, now Monstress is taking a mini-hiatus again until June. Clearly Image called Marjorie again asking the same basic questions they ask of her every other month: ‘Is everything okay? Shouldn’t we be wrapping this story up by now?’ only to be hung up by her while cats screech to the heavens in the background. Maybe Marjorie needs to pick up the Saga Compendum to see how you continue a compelling story that lasts over 40 issues. Look, I want this comic to be great. I want it to last a hundred issues but jeezus louiszus throw me a rational story building bone here!

 

Well, just like a girlfriend of 7 years who all of a sudden loses her marbles you can’t break up with her or you’re the insensitive asshole boyfriend dude. So you have to stick it out with her until she does something so unconscionably bad that everyone agrees you have no choice but to leave her. That’s where we are with this book. I can’t just leave it, I have to stand by it and reassure it that everything is going to be okay as it poops on my gluten-free devil dog. Maybe that’s it. Maybe if she introduces a anthropomorphic Terrier character that gets eaten alive or something I can leave based on the principle of her traumatizing me since I have a Terrier. I wouldn’t put anything past a Cat Lady. At this point I’m sure the suits at Image have already bandied about the idea of releasing the collected volumes of Monstress and calling it ‘The Cat Lady Cat Sh*t Compendum’; you know that’s gotta be on the table at this point.

 

Rating: 6.1

Verdict: Sigh. I support you through your plot hardship Crazy Cat Lady. Pull.