u/DaOverseer

I understand their intentions weren't bad, it was all for show and there was no guarantee the kid would take it so badly but it's still kinda crazy imo.

I think it's a fascinating topic and something I enjoyed even more upon a second read. I don't think it's brought up very often outside the fandom how the comic stars a queer protagonist front and center. As you can probably tell from the first picture which they posted at the start of the month, Image Comics is no stranger to LGBTQ+ characters and creators, tbh I thought it would have been cool to see Maika in the mural since Monstress is currently one of their most acclaimed titles.

Now representation as a whole is huge in the series, you have a predominantly female cast and the depiction of a matriarchal society where women of color play a variety of roles including morally complex and very nuanced characters in positions of power but I like how Marjorie goes even further and takes advantage of the fantasy setting to depict queer characters and relationships that are accepted without any of the real life struggles you would expect, in fact same sex relationship are pretty much treated as the norm. I mean, sure we've grown familiar with settings like that in works such as Arcane or The Owl House, worlds where issues like racism and classism are still a thing yet there's virtually no homophobia, though it should be noted those 2 came out this decade while Monstress did it over ten years ago.

Onto the characters themselves, Maika and Tuya's relationship through all its ups and downs is a vital part of the story. Their connection is a romantic one, it's flawed, complex and it touches some delicate topics like abuse and manipulation, abandonment and trust issues, I know it can be fucked up to read but themes like that can be worth exploring in the world the comic presents. You also have characters like Sophia and Athena, or the Warlord (a personal favorite of mine lol) whose relationship with Tuya, abusive as it was, still shows a whole other side to their characters that can resonate with the audience.

Suffice to say it's all historical fiction and yes, Xerxes' army as depicted by Frank Miller are some pretty nasty dudes (dude even walks into his home with skulls from other kings) but it still raises the question on whether or not this is a textbook example of shooting the messenger. I also kinda like how Rise of an Empire brought back Peter Mensah as the Messenger in Artemisia's flashbacks to show us how he adopted her (a Greek girl) and wasn't even that bad of a guy by Persia's standards.

Ain't nothing wrong with a bit of sexualization, don't get me wrong, a lot of them are written with that in mind and doesn't detract from their good writing but yeah, there's definitely a ton of characters whose writing and qualities get overlooked. Not just female characters btw, I'd argue a lot of male characters get it too.

The iconic "head up bum" scene. I know it's played for laughs and I did find a bit funny but damn, that's still overkill lol. Then again, the dudes were low-key asking for it, did they not know who Hancock was? MF threw a whale back into the ocean and they still thought they could bully him lol.

I started Absolute Batman and Absolute Wonder Woman very recently and I'm loving them so far. Haven't gotten around the others yet but I hear Absolute Martian Manhunter's writing is peak and just reached a conclusion so I might go for it next.

In case you don't know this is a Shonen Mystery/Thriller manga centered around a heavily reimagined version of Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes lore, who teams up with his brothers and criminal acquaintances to kickstart a wave of perfect crimes across all London to instigate an uprising on behalf of the working class and re-shape society and the law system as a whole (earning himself the title of Lord of Crimes in the process). Holmes appears of course as a heroic antagonist but his rivalry with Moriarty is re-worked and recontextualized thoroughly.

Personally I like it and think it's quite alright in terms of enjoyability but it can get on your nerves when you think too hard about its glaring issues and the things that hold it back from being a more than competent story about smarts and detective work. Dare I say it reads like a Sherlock Holmes fanfiction, which is not necesarily a bad thing since it's more upfront about it than say, BBC's Sherlock. For one it doesn't really commit to writing its MC as a protagonist villain so if you're looking for a full on Death Note type of anime or a Golgo 13 you might be underwhelmed by how much of a noble demon our MC is. Don't get me wrong, William is an entertaining protagonist, I found his relationship with his brothers and his rivalry with Sherlock to be compelling enough to keep me reading but he does suffer from being a little too perfect while missing the emotional core that makes some other antiheroes and villains fun to read, he's less like Mads Mikkelsen's Hannibal and more of a Hannibal Rising young Lecter, with his whole murderous Robin Hood schtick taken up a notch.

The art is good, the characters are mostly endearing (I'm rather fond of the manga's take on Sebastian Moran, another enemy of Holmes), some arcs were surprisingly engaging and the story takes many turns which can either elevate it or drag it down depending on your expectations. Oh yeah, tons of fanservice (not the sexual kind tho) and the author geeking out over British stereotypes, not to give too much away but if you like James Bond wait till you get a load of this. The anime is well put together but there's a few good parts of the manga that didn't make the final cut. It's not the best of the bunch when it comes to Sherlock Holmes media but the concept itself, of a Moriarty-centered story, is intriguing enough that I'm surprised by how little it's discussed (not that we talk about Sherlock here either lol).

Pictured here is Dianne Doan as my top pick for Maika. Now you might know her from her work in Descendants, Vikings and Warrior (freaking love that show). When reading the comic I couldn't help but imagine her voice for Maika, she has such a natural sweet voice, even on her 30's I think she could pull off someone of Maika's age just fine. A lot of it steems from how she played Mai Ling in Warrior, she's this traumatized girl who saw the worst of the world as a child so she puts up the cold and ruthless persona of a shotcaller to survive in a crapsack world of violence but you can still see the cracks every now and then. I recommend you watch some clips of her in there, you might draw the parallels and get a good look at her range, for me personally it ties into the way we see Maika switching between the innocent orphan of war and the downright terrifying menace she can turn into. As a plus she's Canadian with mixed Vietnamese and Chinese heritage, that oughta tie nicely into Maika's ethnic identity, the comic's themes and Marjorie's own history and intent.

Now I know Dianne hasn't done a lot of voice acting, just that one time she voiced Lonnie in the Descendants Wicked World shorts but I think they can work with that. I mean, shows like Arcane and Invincible had a balance between regular voice actors (which I hope the Monstress show gets a lot of, I can picture Kimberly Brooks as Tuya) and TV screen actors, take Jeffrey Dean Morgan for example, guy had little to no voice acting credits before but he still killed it as Conquest. I just hope they don't go too crazy casting celebrities, that'd take up a lot of budget and a huge part of it should go to animators if they're to do Sana's art justice imo, can't half ass that part.

I'd also like to emphasize the importance of casting Asian actors and having an overall diverse cast to match the characters. Some of the Arcanics are more tricky, same goes for the Monstrum as we all have our ideas of what Zinn should sound like but characters like Maika and her family should be 100% played by Asian actors imo. Still trying to think of other picks for the rest of the cast so let me know your suggestions in the comments.

Ngl, it's kinda neat seeing fans of both come together outside all the versus debating beef. I dig the idea of Gert being like a douchey older sister to Mark.

Accurate or nah? I narrowed it down to the "good guys" of the story (yeah, I know Kippa is the only you can consider good lol) since most of the larger cast can kill you and look the part too. Might make more of these as I go along, I'm looking to increase my contributions and re-ignite the fandom discussion while we all wait for the TV show.

All credit goes to Gmbo Plus from the Curi DC fb group. So much comedy gold in there.

I don't want to make this all about anime from the get go so to shake things up a bit I'd argue my personal experience with this in recent years stems from Harry Potter and The Boys. I mean, I'm in the minority that actually liked The Boys both as a comic and a show but tbh I've seen a lot of people cut it too much slack for being subversive or politically relevant when it has some pretty baffling writing decisions, and I actually like Garth Ennis more than, say, Mark Millar, but still. Harry Potter I grew up with but like most people I know huge parts of it didn't age well, it's just that you'd be surprised hy how many people still shield Rowling from criticism just because she touched on important topics (even if she completely fumbled the bag).