Monstress #53 // Review
Maika’s got a problem. A propaganda machine has been smoothing the way, but any resistance will be met with maximum force. Thankfully, Maika doesn’t have to deal with the whole army. That’s someone else’s problem. She’s only interested in rescuing a few people. She only has to deal with her father in Monstress #53. Writer Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda are heading for a very crucial moment in the long-running series. Maika’s separation from Zinn is getting worse and it’s a tenuous situation all around for everyone in the ensemble. It’s another well-executed issue in a number of different ways.
Maika doesn’t have a plan. (They ask her if she has a plan. She hasn’t got one. Not really.) She’s going to have to face her father: The Lord Doctor. The Ghoul Killer. A cannibal known for eating his victims. The good news is that he always tends to underestimate her. So he might not know what he’s dealing with. The Lord Doctor used Maika’s power. So he owes her. Perhaps a deal can be made. That might just be the leverage she needs to save her friends and help everyone out. She just has to be direct with him about what she wants...in the right way.
Liu has quite a lot going in in the 53rd chapter of the series. There is quite a lot of tension between father and daughter. And the nature of their relationship is one that keeps the attention that much more interesting than a traditional family drama. There are a lot of other elements at play in the course of the chapter, but they’re all resting around the periphery of the interaction between Maika and The Lord Doctor. This is a very very good thing as that particular tension is a particularly strong part of Liu’s story.
Takeda’s execution of the drama is very cleverly crafted. There is quite a lot going on between father and daughter. Many artists would. tend to want to over-render the intensity of the moment with odd angles and over-exaggerated emotion. There’s a subtlety in the politics that are playing-out between the two characters, though, and neither one of them wants to reveal too much. Takeda wisely keeps things simple. Very close shots between the faces of both of the characters are cast in a shadowy darkness that allows the dialogue to do what it needs to do in order to deliver the drama.
Maika and Takeda are working with a long ranging plot that has moved out in many different directions that feel pretty idiosyncratic. A series like this would be very difficult for people to pick up anywhere in the middle of the story. To their credit, the creative team for this particular series are doing a remarkable job, maintaining a story that would be theoretically possible for just about to start with just about any issue. Each chapter is executed enough that it would theoretically be able to serve as a nice introduction to the series for anyone. This issue exception.
