Warning for possible SPOILERS. Really, you should go read Volume One.
This one hit the great mark for me again. I think I liked everything about it- yes, in spite of the frequent bloody altercations, and nudity that sometimes seems to have no purpose other than to make these graphic novels adult-audience-only. While I still really dislike the spider people, now there’s another character I’m assuming of the same alien species- a mantis woman who was just drawn perfectly. She’s a teacher, and Hazel is in her class- which is held in a prison. Hazel and her grandmother were taken captive by the enemy side, now residing in a detention center. Hazel adjusts to this new disruption to her life, making friends with the other prisoners’ kids, confiding in her teacher, and discovering that one of the adult inmates is trans. Really, I shouldn’t have been surprised that this series which depicts odd aliens in situations that appear totally normal and mundane even while there’s interplanetary warfare and magic going on, should also have gender queer characters. But it did. And it was great how innocently Hazel asked questions, and how easily accepted the differences. The gay photographer/writer couple that reports for a tabloid made a reappearance in this volume- not my favorite characters, but still interesting. The bounty hunter is on his feet again but in bad shape, and hallucinating (seeing and talking to his dead lover) which throws all kinds of things awry. The fictional writer’s book becomes a key item again, this time Hazel is sharing a copy with her mantis-lady teacher and the prisoners in the detainment center are reading it (which made me laugh). I loved the sanctity of the library – although the other one, delightfully full of scrolls, became a scene of violence. Marko ends up using weapons against opponents again, even though he doesn’t want to. The robot prince becomes an actual character, the family is finally all reunited and wait, where those giant tardigrades somebody battled at one point? Some panels in this book I just had no idea what was going on, but I enjoyed it regardless. On to the next!
Borrowed from the public library. Previous book in this series.
