Friday, August 27, 2010

Review: Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together


Its summertime in Scott Pilgrim's world, and two full months have passed since his last battle with one of Ramona's evil exes. Without the distraction of having to fight ex-boyfriends, and all that drama, Scott has managed to develop a pretty solid thing with Ramona...things are going so good in fact that she even said he is the nicest guy she's ever dated, (which is kinda sad), but Scott has yet to even think about let alone mention the "L" word...(no not "Lesbian"). Meanwhile, Scott's band, Sex Bob-Omb, has reached a turning point. Drummer Kim Pine moved to a new place, and her new roommate has recording equipment. Thanks to the guy's attraction to guitarist, Stephen Stills, he agrees to help them record an album.

Just when things seem to be getting better for Scott he runs into an old-and skankily dressed-high school friend, he gets stalked by some creepy katana-wielding dude, gets randomly attacked by a chubby ninja-chick on roller skates, and gets a job. It should come as no surprise that once things start to get complicated, Scott's love-life takes a nose dive. The question is can Scott get his shit together in time to fix things? And is the power of love enough to overcome Ramona's 4th evil ex? (This time the "L" word is lesbians).

The fourth volume of Scott Pilgrim started off a little bit slow, but the tension builds up nicely and it finishes with a pretty strong bang. This volume features fairly big developments and changes with the two principle characters, Scott and Ramona. By the end, you will see them in a new way.

One feature, that is completely unique to this volume, is that the first eight pages are done in color. This little section was pretty fun, it was nice to see all the main characters in full color. Maybe I'm just weird, but my favorite thing about this was finding out what the character's hair colors were. For some reason, when I read a comic that is black and white, it bugs me that I don't know a person's hair color. Weird I know... Anyway, O'Malley solved that little problem for me here, so yay!

On the art front, O'Malley's skill improvement is less noticeable than in the previous volumes. I think the improvement lies in the fact that the panels have started to show more attention to detail, with slightly more developed backgrounds. Though the improvement is less obvious, it is nice to see O'Malley deliver another nice looking graphic novel.

Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together tends to focus a bit more on the romance aspect of this series than it does on the action. This volume features my least favorite evil-ex battle so far, despite the funny, though obvious, twist. The last three volumes struck what was for me, the perfect balance between action, comedy and romance, and I think that balance was a little bit off here, with the scales tipped more in favor of the romance. Scott Pilgrim is no Lance Romance though, so there is plenty to laugh about. This is another great read, though possibly a little bit weaker than the previous volumes. Still, a graphic novel with amazingly high quality.

Grade: B+

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