Morning Glories vol. 9: Assembly

Now here’s the kind of volume I like to see from this series.  It offers several stories that are entertaining on their own merits while also furthering the title’s long-term storytelling.  Things get off to a great start with Ian snarkily waking up from a nightmare and proceeding to troll Casey for her presumably doomed attempt to become the next head of the student council.  He then proceeds to visit the library and winds up getting glimpses of the past, present, and future as they somewhat relate to him.  Next up is Dr. Richmond and we get to see her history with Vanessa and how that informs her present.  Then we have a Jade-centric story where we learn that she has an incredible power.  One that comes with a pretty large drawback.  Closing out the volume, we see Irina after she was rescued by Ms. Clarkson in the past, and the co-opted by the Academy in the present.  She’s got a new mission now:  Killing a member of the cast who I wouldn’t mind seeing die all over again!

These stories strike a good balance between being self-contained and relevant to the overall plot.  To the point that you wish writer Nick Spencer managed to hit this balance more often in this series.  You come out of each story learning a bit more about the character(s) who serve as the focus, and wanting to know what’s going to happen to them from here.  That’s particularly true of Dr. Richmond’s tale as it takes a character I had lost all familiarity with before opening this volume, and made her struggle to connect with her daugher at the Academy surprisingly tense and involving.  Jade’s story feels like a big piece of the overall puzzle, even if the ability she’s revealed to have is going to need a really good explanation to feel credible and not simply “plot magic.”  It was also nice to see how much of a handful Irina could be to adults who didn’t know how to handle her, and the thought of Ike moving into politics… Well, who wouldn’t want to see where that’s going?

Thinking about it more, the flashback (and flash-forward) nature of the stories here really feel like a strong callback to this title’s biggest inspiration, “Lost.”  Their use here reminds me how entertaining such devices can be when done right.  Even so, what’s here isn’t quite good enough to get me to tell people who haven’t started reading this title that they should jump on.  If you haven’t, then you’re still better off waiting to see how this all turns out in the end.  For the committed, vol. 9 offers a bit more hope that this crazy train will lead somewhere worthwhile in the end.