James Nicoll Reviews

Marjorie Liu’s 2021 Monstress, Volume 6: The Vow collects Monstress: Talk-Stories #1 – 2 and Monstress #31 – 35.

When we left our characters, the (mainly human) Federation of Man was once again at war with the Arcanics, whom the humans consider to be useful magical fuel. Too bad the fuel is contained within monsters who don’t want to be destroyed in processing. 

Next on the Federation’s list for conquest: the city of Ravenna. Understandably reluctant to be painfully converted to lilium (the magical fuel), the Arcanics put up a heated defense. 

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2020’s Warchild (Monstress, Volume 5) collects issues 25 to 30 of Marjorie Liu’s ongoing cosmic-horror-fantasy-war comic series. Art is by Sana Takeda.

The previous war between the Federation of Man and the Arcanic Empire ended when the city of Constantine was annihilated, taking over a hundred thousand people with it. The Federation credited the weapon used to the Arcanics — inaccurately, although the Arcanics were in no hurry to correct the error — and lacking their own equivalent, backed down to regroup. 

When the Federation’s holy city of Aurum is obliterated by a seemingly similar weapon, the logical inference is that the Arcanic Empire is to blame. They are not but the war is back on regardless.

High on the Federation’s to-conquer list: the city of Ravenna.

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2019’s Monstress, Volume 4¹, collects issues 19 – 24 of Marjorie Lui’s ongoing epic fantasy comic. The series is drawn by Sana Takeda.

Having saved the city of Pontus and the world in general from a cosmic horror from beyond the stars, Maika Halfwolf sets out to rescue her small friend, fox girl Kippa, who was betrayed by a trusted friend and carried off in the previous installment. 

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Monstress, Book One¹ collects the first eighteen issues of Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s epic secondary-universe fantasy manga. 

The semi-magical Arcanics are descended from godlike beings. When properly processed, their body parts can be transformed into the extremely useful substance Lilium. The humans, in particular the witches of the Cumaea, see the Arcanics as beasts fit only for slavery or for slow, painful conversion into Lilium. The Arcanics disagree. Hence the seemingly endless wars between the Arcanics and the Federation of Man. 

The most recent war ended when the entire city of Constantine and all within it were burned from the face of the planet. Believing this was a work of a new Arcanic weapon, the Federation agreed to peace … for the moment. 

Which gets us to one-armed Maika, an Arcanic who when we first meet her is about to sold into slavery or worse. 

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