Infinite part Four
IDW Publishing 2017
Written by Kelly Thompson
Illustrated by Jenn St-Onge
Coloured by Brittany Peer
Lettered by Shawn Lee
After a touching reunion with their alternate reality father, Jem and The Holograms are busy
working with Emmett and Techrat on ways they might stop JemCorp and save this world. But The
Misfits aren't interested in spending one extra second in a candy-coated JemWorld and are
more interested in seeing what's on the other side of the wall... and perhaps more to the point... what happened to this earth's Misfits!
As much as we all want to hate Pizzazz we really can’t. Yes Kelly’s characterisation of her is so on point that we can clearly see where she’s coming from and how she forms her shall we say biased opinions. Even with all that you still can’t change how you feel about the self-centered, manipulative and compulsively lying Pizzazz. Let’s face it she is who she is and she’s a perfect foil for the straight laced Jerrica/Jem.
I do like the fact that Pizzazz wants to find this world’s version of the Misfit’s and is willing to risk life and limb of all them to find them. There are so many different things that are going on here in this issue that continues to remind me why I have been really enjoying Kelly’s writing. She’s really able to not only tell one heck of a story but she’s able to weave the kind of characterisation and circumstances into it that the original source material was never capable of doing. I love that somehow a battle of the bands thing has turned into a science-fiction alternate reality hopping adventure about life and death. Not only is this fun but because of who we’re dealing with here it doesn’t even seem far fetched to me.
Jenn does some wonderful work on the interiors here too. Yes it’s all-ages and more on the cartoon style of art that I don’t gravitate towards but that’s what makes this so accessible to literally everyone. That she and Brittany can be so creative as well is wonderful to see, the hairstyles, outfits and all of it are a great opportunity to really showcase the imagination and creativity that they have and want to unleash upon the world. The way page layouts are done and the utilisation of angles and perspective really help tell the story. I do want to see more backgrounds used but that’s just me of course I always do.
So the fact that Pizzazz took the girls into the other side of wall and ends up learning what happened to the Misfit’s in this reality. I gotta say while this doesn’t go anywhere near the way the girls want to hear it’s pretty damn compelling. Also if Pizzazz listens to this world’s version of Stormer and Kimber then what happened here will not happen in their reality. it’s a lot swallow really to know that you are responsible for what’s happened here and not admitting that, well okay not her per se but her nonetheless because apples don’t fall far from the tree. Once again the power of the storytelling and characterisation here is absolutely stunning.
Also I adore the fact that while Jem and the Holograms are off with their surrogate father and Techrat they are learning one aspect of the truth while Pizzazz and the Misfit’s learn their own version of the truth so that when put together hopefully we’ll see the real version of what went down here. Two sides to every story right and it’s discerning which parts of both are relevant and make up the correct version. I like it a lot I mean the whole way that this story is coming together and unfolding so that we along with the girls are figuring out just what happened here is extremely well done.
I always thought the cartoon was cute, it was no Josie and the Pussycats but nothing else was, and watched it a few times but was never what Id call a fan. Since IDW has started with these books I’ve actually become a fan. They’ve managed to transcend what I saw it as originally and made it into something so much more. there’s an intelligence and thoughtfulness to this now that represents not only going after your dreams but says that science shouldn’t be just a boys club.