Monstress vol. 10: Hollow Gods

It’s standard issue for things to be bad in Maika Halfwolf’s life.  Yet, the last time we saw her, things were especially dire.  That’s because she, and anyone else who had touched the mask of the Shaman-Empress had been possessed by another member of Zinn’s race:  The Defiled.  Which means that, as this volume opens, there are half a dozen new players in this story with the power to upend the conflict for their own ends.  Assuming that they can get it together and that their presence doesn’t somehow unite factions in this narrative that have been at each others’ throats since the very start.  Or that Maika might find a way to work with her new passenger to steamroll anyone who comes between saving fellow possessee, Kippa.

Each volume of “Monstress” is always A Lot.  Lots of characters dealing with their own personal dramas along with the roles they play in the greater conflicts of their world, which tend to play out on a continental (and sometimes planetary) scale as things tick ever so closer to annihilation.  Writer Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda have done an exceptional job making their epic story accessible over nine previous volumes, and I can’t lie:  I was worried that vol. 10 was where the wheels were finally going to come off.

This series has always had a large cast that’s difficult to keep straight unless you’re re-reading every previous volume before the new one comes out.  Vol. 10 throws six all-new characters into that mix in a way that feels like it’s derailing what we’ve been reading so far.  That’s a difficult task by any standard, and it’s not helped by the fact that this is one time when Takeda’s usually exceptional design sense doesn’t quite work here.  That’s because it’s hard to tell most of these new characters apart because their multi-eyed, tentacle-y abomination-ness tends to blend together (so it’s good all of their dialogue bubbles are color-coded).

What keeps vol. 10 from feeling like the point where the series has jumped the humanoid-shark arcanic is that Liu does her best to quickly work these new characters into existing conflicts.  Which is good news for anyone hoping to see Maika’s dad have a bad day at some point.  Better still is that for all their power, these new Defiled are still prone to some very humanoid bickering and backstabbing.  So you’ve got multiple new antagonists who are actually struggling to achieve their plans, which makes them vulnerable as Maika quickly impresses upon her new “partner.”

Even if there’s a lot more going on in this volume of “Monstress” than usual, it still feels like a proper volume of the series in the end.  That’s because the series’ constant sense of forward momentum is still preserved throughout and there’s notable progress in the overall story and multiple character arcs.  It also ends with a final page that will offer fans some relief following the events of the past few volumes.  That makes “Hollow Gods” another worthy installment in this series, even though I hope that the next time Liu and Takeda decide to shake things up they find a way to do it with the existing cast and not by adding so many new ones.

…To the point where this volume apparently had a full issue’s worth of content added to it for the trade paperback release.  That’s right, vol. 10 says that it contains “24 never-before-seen bonus pages.”  Normally that’d feel like a reward for trade-waiters like me.  After reading this volume, it feels like an admission that its creators bit off more than they could chew while serializing it in single-issue form.