Review: Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 4

Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together (Scott Pilgrim, #4)Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
by Bryan Lee O'Malley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together / 9781932664492

I got hooked into the Scott Pilgrim franchise after very much enjoying the movie. I'm surprised at how much the movie resembled the first few Scott Pilgrim volumes, but with Volume 4 we're definitely entering territory where most of this graphic novel wasn't included in the movie. It's not hard to see why most of the material here couldn't make it into the film adaptation -- as delightful as this volume is, there's quite a lot of slow character growth to wade through as Scott Pilgrim does, indeed, grapple to get things together.

In this volume, Scott must try to find a job, a new apartment, and defeat another evil ex of Ramona's while also grappling with his own past relationship demons in the form of Knives Chau's exceedingly dangerous father. Scott is as sweet and clueless as ever (thinking "the L-word" is, well, a *different* L-word) and the fun video game humor is still here in full force (as when Scott asks if working his way up the restaurant chain is like the Final Fantasy "job system". Characterizations continue to deepen as Scott and Ramona have to decide how they feel about each other over the long haul... and additionally have to deal with the boredom and ennui that can set in from time to time in a stable relationship.

If you like the Scott Pilgrim series so far, you'll like seeing Scott start pulling his life together and dealing with things a little more maturely than before; if you're not sure how you feel about the series and are looking whether or not to continue, this volume is a little slow and somewhat more of the same, but it's nice to see Scott and Ramona develop their relationship more and start to become "real" adults rather than overgrown kids.

~ Ana Mardoll

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3 comments:

Mime_Paradox said...

This is probably my favorite Scott Pilgrim book: the artwork has reached optimum polish; I love the opening homage to Sonic the Hedgehog, and Lisa Miller makes for a rather great "guest star".  Looking back on it, I also really like that one pane where the entire group is hanging out at Korean DeLite.  Oh, and that last-page parody of manga "Dude, you're reading the book from the wrong direction" warning is GOLD.  If there's one misstep, it's that I don't feel Roxy Ritcher is a terribly compelling ex--she's the one character I feel the movie unambiguously handled better (yes, "I'm a little bit bi-FURIOUS!" is a damn great line). 

 

Mime_Paradox said...

Yeah, Envy's loss in the movie is very much Roxy's gain.  Plus, Mae Whitman rocks. 

Oh, you've reminded me: in the book, this is actually the first time Ramona actually makes the distinction between "Seven Evil Exes" and "Seven Evil Ex-Boyfriends", which suggests that O'Malley didn't really have Roxy in mind when initially  conceived the series.  I'm really glad the movie is more consistent on this point, cause it annoys me whenever I go back to the first book. 

Ana Mardoll said...

 Hah, I noticed that too -- in fact, in the book, it's backwards: SCOTT says "exes" and RAMONA corrects him to "boyfriends". Heh. I'll just assume that when Gideon tampered with Scott's memories, he mixed that conversation up. :P

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