Monstress, Volume 3: Haven

Probably a 3.5.

This series continues to be as confusing as ever. The world is too expansive and things are happening in different parts of the world at the same time, but I can’t keep track of them. Nobody’s intentions are entirely clear and I always feel that there are more questions than answers.

Maika hopes for some respite from all the people trying to kill her but she can’t escape her predicament even in the neutral city of Pontus. When more horrors await, it was interesting to see her work together with the monster inside her, Zinn. I never thought I would enjoy their dynamic but I really did.

Cats are still the most mysterious of the characters but I was still shocked when I saw the truth about Master Ren. Kippa is the most show more precious character in this whole series and just reading about how good and compassionate she is brought tears to my eyes. She is probably the main reason I’m continuing with this but that cliffhanger ending has just made it impossible for me to give up. I LOVE YOU KIPPA ❤️❤️❤️

The art style is amazing and elaborate as usual and I commend the artist’s talent of being able to convey so much through the panels. And the different kinds of characters depicted here are some of the best I’ve ever seen. I can’t wait to see what more is in store for us. show less

In a lot of ways, this third volume of Monstress is better than all the rest. But why? Didn't I love the death of Halfwolf's mother or the island or horrors in the second?

Of course I did!

But this third volume is all kinds of great reveals and a wonderful new location that I actually love. I have an investment here. Oh, and god battles kick major butt. :)

The understory is getting SWEET, the conflicts are ramping up great, and war is here! Not just rumors of war or rememberings of past atrocities, but an all-out gala event of bloodshed under the watchful eye of an escaped tentacular god. :)

Fun! :)

this one feels urgent because this volume's arc plays out as one one unending fight between Maika Halfwolf and a very large cast of new opposing forces who are not that well differentiated, with the poet Professor Tam Tam handling most of the historical exposition. whereas it seemed to me the most interesting thing going on was the character development in the deep background of the original characters, particularly and remarkably that of the monster inside Maika.

I'm not entirely sure what I just read, and I don't mean that in wow-that-was-far-out-man kind of way.

By the third volume of any series, I should have a decent grasp of the world I'm temporarily occupying in my imagination, but I don't. Monstress is ambitious in its world building, and I love that about it, but it's not solidifying anything in my mind due to some combination of the following:

- While I generally love Takeda's artwork, in this volume it wasn't always clear what I was looking at and that made it hard to follow the action, characters, plot, etc.
- Some of the spreads are frantic/incoherent and just don't scan well on the page
- I'm all for complexity, but the history of this world isn't coming together in a holistic way for show more me, and I think it's because we get ambiguous snippets here and there in the story, and then a text-dump from Professor Tam Tam at the end, and the two aren't coalescing for me

Still, I'm invested, and won't be able to live without resolving that cliffhanger, so volume 4 here I come... show less

I wrote a lukewarm review of volume two of Monstress but I think I was trying to convince myself I liked it more than I actually did; there's a reason that when I filled out my ballot for the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story I placed it last. So I decided to stop picking up its volumes at that point-- however when volume three also became a finalist, I decided I might as well keep my set going. Anyway, I get that people like this but I just do not. Sana Takeda's art is marvelous and gorgeous, but Marjorie Liu's writing has largely lost me by this point. I just don't care about Meika or her backstory or her mom or her backstory or her captive god or its backstory. It's all a bit too unrelentingly grim and humorless. The sparks of show more light come from the innocent fox Arcanic, Kippa, and her attempts to make the world a better place, and the cat spymaster, Ren Mormorian, and his attempts to do right by his various allegiances but also by Kippa. However, there was much less of the two of them in this volume than in previous ones, and hence it suffered for it. I'm done with the series. (Unless, of course, it ends up on the Hugo ballot again!) show less

The third collected volume of the dark fantasy/horror comic Monstress. I don't know how much there is to say about this one that I didn't already say about the first two. The artwork is still incredibly gorgeous, although it's still not always the easiest thing in the world to follow all the action. The world-building is still rich and complex. The story continues to get more interesting. And I continue to slightly regret not waiting until the whole thing is over to start reading it, as it's depressingly easy to lose track of everything that's going on between installments.

I will say that the more I read of this, the more impressed I am by the unexpected things it does. Like the way it completely reverses the traditional ratio of male show more to female characters for this kind of thing and feels no need to justify or even draw attention to this fact. Or the way the man-eating Lovecraftian monstrosity turns out to be a surprisingly complicated and interesting character.

Anyway. I'm still definitely enjoying this (even if I do sometimes feel as if I'm missing things in it), and I'm now really looking forward to volume 4. show less

Oh, I looooove these comics. I think this is my favorite series, by far. Everything about its universe, its mythology, and world building is so original and evocative.

Book content warnings:
again, Tons of blood and gore as always

Maika, Kippa, Ren, and of course, Maika's Monster-god make it into Pontus, the island that's been a refugee safe & neutral zone through the past war. It's been protected by a great Shield created and powered by none other than Moriko, Maika's mother. When the powers of the Known World close in on Pontus for Maika, it could mean another war - and unless Maika gets the Shield working, all of Pontus could suffer.

The plot moved a little too fast, I think, for me, because I just wanted more details and more time spent show more in so many places. But this is just sooo good. I really have nothing to say about this volume in general except that it's just as well-drawn and well thought out as the first two volumes.

If I can't say anything about it, let its many awards speak for me:
Best Writer Eisner Award 2018
Best Continuing Series Eisner Award 2018
Best Painter/Multimedia Artist Eisner Award 2018
Best Publication For Teens Eisner Award 2018
Best Cover Artist Eisner Award 2018
Best Graphic Story Hugo Award 2017
Best Comic/Graphic Novel British Fantasy Award 2017 show less