At last, the final volume of Scott Pilgrim is here. The saga is now complete and I can be free to review other things again! But that's not to say that this wasn't a fun ride because it was. I saw this series evolved from a very funny and cute, albeit highly stylized, story into a story that had real characters talking about some heavy themes like fidelity and the like but it was still highly stylized and it never abandoned its fun even if it came close a few times. So now we are at Volume 6 where everything comes to a head...so enough of this stalling as we dive into Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour.
Well, it's been some time after the fallout of Volume 5. Scott and Ramona are still not together and Scott's all mopey. He attempts to stop his moping with demanding previous ex-girlfriends into having sex with him...CASUAL SEX! That fails most spectacularly, obviously, and Scott still has the last of Ramona's evil exes, Gideon Gordon Graves! So he runs away to hide forever, but after getting some inspiration and knowledge in nature, he's back WITH A VENGEANCE! Now questions will be answered, asses will be kicked, people make shocking returns and blood will be spilled!
Now after the transformation of the characters into real people and all the weighty themes in Volume 5, it's about time that this series goes back to what it was known for: hilarious jokes, fourth-wall breaking, video-game references and awesome fights. And yet, it finds a way to make those things Darker and Edgier! The casual sex jokes are extremely creepy and the fourth-wall just reinforces the fact that it's very creepy with the CASUAL SEX jokes. But what makes all that work is how it's presented. It's just there with no winking or being too jokey, it's like "Here it is, laugh or not. I don't care!" Anything other than that attitude was probably going to be doomed to failure.
And then I wasn't kidding when I said blood was going to be spilled since now the fights are bloodier and gorier than ever. But somehow it totally fits with the most evil of all the evil exes in this volume, Gideon Gordon Graves! He is by far my favorite character out of the series, including previous favorite Lucas Lee from Volume 2. He's everything an evil final boss should be: he's brutal, powerful, charismatic, friendly and extremely crazy prepared. He has a sword hidden in a dress! That's just the kind of guy he is! If any of the other evil exes showed those qualities and spilled as much blood as Gideon did, it would have been too depressing to see since the previous exes all had light-hearted qualities to them. But not Gideon, this comic is right to say What a Dick.
So when I was finished with this volume, I was unsure if this was the best or the worst out of the series. The plot is extremely herky-jerky. A lot of minor plot threads don't really get resolved except that the one strategy Ramona has when things get a teensy bit difficult is to run away. Then there's the fact that most of the big reveals in Scott's past is basically one panel brush-offs that are not given the attention that something of that magnitude requires. However, despite all that it is the most entertaining volume of the series because of Gideon. The artwork has fully evolved to give something like this justice. It's been a fun ride and these comics tell a great story. Now it's finally time to move on to other things.
10/10
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