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The visuals in this comic are great; it’s dark and steam punk themed. It’s all rather cool and the action scenes are illustrated brilliantly. It even has a special race of fighting cats that are so ridiculously bad ass; yet, for all that, I found the whole thing quite confusing.

There’s a lot of history with this comic book, which is fine, but I don’t feel like its very well established. There are brief mentions of past events, but not enough details to establish their significance. I feel like the world building is a little too complex for a graphic novel. It’s trying to squeeze so much information in, but it can’t quite cope with the amount it has. And that’s why it all seems brief.

Monstress is trying to be too many things at once far too early on in the series.







Look at Saga. With each volume more story is added and it becomes increasingly complex. It doesn’t begin so. I was lost for most of this. It’s like I’m starting with the second volume, where everything is already clear and the characters and locations make sense. I had no clue who half of these people were supposed to be. I really think the author needed to take a step (or two) back and slow down. I don’t need everything thrown at me at once.

Other than the confusing world building, I think the story is rather solid. The central plot is very strong, it follows a young girl who is inhabited by an evil tentacle monster that feeds of the living and can take possession of her body whenever it chooses. So she’s quite dangerous and she’s trying to discover/remember how she came to be so powerful. Her family have the answers and she’s attempting to find them in this labyrinth of a world that doesn’t yet make sense to me.

However, I won’t be reading the next volume. I don’t think the author quite knows how to write a balanced story, I can’t see this improving. I’m happy to leave it here.