Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt vol. 23

The Solar Ray was finally fired at the end of the previous volume and no one escapes unscathed here.  Some are more scathed than others, however, but both sides find themselves trying to regroup and regain the upper hand after the event.  Not Karla Mitchum, however.  She’s finally in a position to exact the revenge she’s always dreamed about and even though that faces a major setback here, Karla still has the means to decimate a large number of Zeon’s citizens.  However Darryl as well as Io and Yith are aware of her plans thanks to the power of Newtypes  and are (separately) prepared to stop her using whatever means are available to them.  Meanwhile, Chekhov’s Nuke abides…

Even though the setting hasn’t changed, it feels like we’ve entered the next stage of the story in “Thunderbolt” as the drive to stop Karla is on.  Mangaka Yasuo Ohtagaki sets this up in bravura fashion with the first half of the volume providing a visual spectacle as we witness the devastation caused by the Solar Ray, as well as all of the drama surrounding it.  More impressive is that he does this while keeping the dialogue to a minimum and letting his art tell the story.  It works, and provides this series with one of its most memorable sequences.

Then the plot starts ramping up again as the focus is on the three lanes represented by Karla, Darryl, and Io & Yith.  Ohtagaki manages to jump between them with ease and without confusing the reader, staying focused on one set of characters just long enough to advance the plot before jumping to the next.  It helps keep the momentum going, and he even manages to answer a big question I had from the previous volume in a fairly weird fashion as Io and Yith pick up a new partner.  I don’t know if the kind of technology that allows him to exist has always been present in the “Gundam” universe, or if Ohtagaki just threw it in for this manga, but I’m more willing to suspend my disbelief regarding it than I am to accept mysterious beings of light being part of the main story.  Which, after the last few volumes, is in surprisingly good shape as it heads into what looks to be its final storyline (finally).