It seems that I could just rename this blog the Scott Pilgrim Reviews since I'm working my way towards the whole saga and then possibly watch the movie. I could but there's still so many non-Scott Pilgrim things to review that I won't. But anyone who's read my reviews of the first two volumes knows that I do find this saga to be one of the most entertaining comic books that I've read even though the Volume 2 was a step down from Volume 1. And now we come to Volume 3, will it continue being a step down or will it remind me of the ultra-awesomeness of Volume 1. Let's find out as we dive into Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness.
By now you should know that our slacker Canadian hero Scott Pilgrim is dating Ramona Flowers, who has baggage with seven evil ex-boyfriends that Scott must defeat. This volume's evil ex-boyfriend is Todd Ingram, bassist for successful group Clash at the Demon Head whose singer is Scott's ex-girlfriend, Envy, in which he had a bad breakup with. And what makes this fight even harder is that Todd is a vegan which grants him awesome powers of.....vegan awesomeness. So Scott has to dig deep if he plans to defeat Todd and get rid of those pesky flashbacks he has with Envy in happier times.
I think it's safe to say that the author has finally solidify his writing style for Scott Pilgrim. Here, he strikes the perfect balance between the nice, soft character development of Volume 2 and the fast-paced video-game, joke-a-minute, clever wording cocktail of Volume 1. The characters are no longer just relate-able to me but actual people to care about. All the major players now have their own neat backstories or the hint of a neat backstory that'll come up in the later volumes. No one is saying clever things just to be clever but that there's a point and purpose to it. Everything just makes sense in this volume.
Now there are some things that did bother me a bit in this volume. The first thing is that the separation between flashbacks and the present is a bit poorly done on the first read. There isn't much in the way of orientating the reader on when the past becomes the present since the past is pretty obvious due to Scott's long hippie hair. When it shifts to the present there isn't much warning and you don't get any close-ups so you can't go by hair length. With re-reading this, this complaint is silly but it nagged me at first. But what flaw that doesn't go away with re-reads is the mini-fight/competition between Scott and Todd at some place called Honest Ed's, which is the Canadian version of Wal-Mart or something like that. The thing is that it's supposed to be a really horrifying and deadly place but the only reason why is that it's similar to how a new-born baby cries at the horror of being alive. I guess it's the hip thing to think that stuff like Wal-Mart is a place of soul-sucking evil filled with evil moose clocks or something. And even though it's actually a cute bit, it does nothing to advance the plot and it tells nothing of what's going on. It's just a waste.
This volume delivers exactly what you expect out of Scott Pilgrim by this point. It has all the awesome video game references, it's still hip and it's still hilarious. It does falter with how the story is set-up between flashbacks and Honest Ed's but those are fairly minor quibbles and they don't damage this volume too badly....the other two volumes are still better but not by much.
8/10
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