Read This: Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Universe

When I talked about Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, I discussed how Bryan Lee O’Malley was moving the focus of the story away from the pyrotechnic battles into more serious emotional terrain. As the fifth volume, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Universe, gets underway, the battles with the evil exes have become so incidental that O’Malley literally treats Scott’s fight as a background element.

Things don’t stay that way—but when the main fight takes place, about halfway through the volume, O’Malley sets it up as a deliberate echo of a flashback scene from Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, as Scott is forced to rescue his best friend, Kim, from the Katayanagi twins in a scenario staged much like his high school rescue of Kim from the evil Simon—and he’s only able to win that battle because Kim sets up a fantasy about his relationship with Ramona… but the fighting isn’t enough to keep Ramona around, as the truth about Scott’s muddled transition from dating Knives to dating Ramona finally comes to light. (Here the graphic novels linger on the narrative beats much longer than the film: Although Ramona does bail on Scott in both cases, he spends a lot more time moping here, and in the process almost completely eradicating the fantasy elements of the story—now, when he tries to fight his way through his problems, it just looks ridiculous.)

Yes, we can be reasonably certain Scott’s going to pull himself together for the final showdown, but it’s unclear at the end of this volume what that’s actually going to mean, and how Ramona’s going to fit back into the story…

18 August 2010 | read this |