Read my thoughts on Vol. 1 – 3.

* * * Also, potential spoiler alerts I guess. * * *

Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
The volume is pretty good. We learn, much to Scott’s surprise, that Ramona dated a girl who is one of her seven evil exes. In addition to fighting her, Scott must also fend off attacks from a mysterious ninja-like figure. Ohhh, Mystery. Not much happens in this book I feel. It feels as if this book is just filler for the series as we get closed to the end. Scott get’s a job, busts out the L word and moves in with Ramona. I guess that’s considered “getting it together”, hence the titled.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe
Mayhaps the darkest volume in the Scott Pilgrim saga. Something’s up with Ramona, and I’m beginning to think she’s not all that great. She’s started to open up but is still too damn mysterious at this point in the story. Anyway, in this volume Scott fight’s some robots and a pair of twins. The twins are the evil exes, the robots are just there to be robotic-like. I did find it funny that in this book we would often find Scott fighting robots in the background while other people carry on normal conversations as if nothing odd is happening. It was funny at first, but it drew the relationships to the forefront of the story which may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view. I do like that Kim Pine get’s more story time here. There are even hints that perhaps Kim and Scott will end up together.

Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour
First off: It’s not. His finest hour, that is. If you have been follow Scott Pilgrim’s adventures from the beginning you would know this book probably contains the Scott vs. Gideon fight. Until now very little had been known about the mysterious 7th evil ex and how they all banded together to form the league of evil exes. The story picks up after the cliffhanger in Vs. The Universe and Scott is trying to live his life without Ramona. He’s not doing a very good job at it. One thing leads to another and the epic battle commences. What I did not like about this book is the sense of finality that it gave. You know how the finale of a TV show tries to wrap up all the lose ends in the final episode? It’s kinda like that where we are constantly encountering characters who tell Scott what their plans are for the future and how they don’t involve him. If this were a TV series you could easily follow any of these characters and start a spin-off feature them. It’s annoying because everybody ends up conveniently happy, unlike real life. Another issue I had was Gideon wasn’t nearly as cool of an evil ex as the first six. As it turns out, he’s just crazy. Almost James Bond villain crazy. I just wanted something more logical than Gideon having a hard time getting over the girls that dump him. Lastly, while the previous books had their fair share of video game references, this volume felt sorely lacking in that department. There were some, it’s a trademark of the series after all, but they did not stand out as much as Ramona quoting Monkey Island or Scott noticing a Save Point.

To sum up, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour isn’t. It’s a conclusion to the series and is overall too convenient of an ending and lacks the charm of the previous books. It’s sad that Scott Pilgrim ends on such a flat note.

Second Opinions:
Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

The upcoming movie is suppose to have a different ending from the books, so maybe the movie will give me the closer I am looking for.

Have you heard of this little known comic series called Scott Pilgrim? Not many people have, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t. I hear they might make a movie about it at some point. Again, these are just rumors.

Well, anyway, with the comic series having finally wrapped up. I thought I would re-read them all. Being forced to wait a year in between books makes it difficult for me to remember certain characters and plot events and whatnot.

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life
The Scott Pilgrim series is apparently about this 23 year old guy who starts dating a 17 year old high school student. Wait, check that. Scott Pilgrim is apparently about this 23 year old who starts dating a 17 year old high school student but then starts cheating on her by totally sleeping with this girl he meets at a party. I know that the above statement is not what Scott Pilgrim is about, but if someone just randomly picked up this book and started reading without having a friend tell them what it was about or without reading the back cover, then this is what I would think the plot is about. It’s not until near the end up the book that seven evil ex-boyfriends is mention. I find it odd that the book opens with Scott’s relationship with Knives (the high school student). To me that suggests that she plays an important role in the story. That, or the entire first half of this book is just filler. Couldn’t we have just started with Scott met Ramona (the party girl)? That would have made more sense.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Wold
Now that we’ve got the introduction to the series under our belt, Vol 2 can just jump right in to the meat and potato of the series, so to speak. In my mind this book is still trying to find the proper balance between drama/action/comedy. While the drama and comedy are there, the action is a bit of a let down. Vol 2 does contain my favorite fight scene in the whole series when Knives attacks Ramona in the library. I think the outfit Knives is wearing and Ramona’s ability to kick-ass come as a nice surprise to the reader. The Scott vs. Evil Ex battle in this book is an incredible let down. Halfway through the ex gets killed in a pretty pathetic skateboarding accident making him the most forgettable of the ex’s. The rest of the book is about Scott’s band and his need for a haircut.

Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness
Vol 3 is my favorite book in the series. I think it is the most well balanced. Todd, evil ex number #3, who was shown in the final pages of Vol 2, is a vegan and just happens to be dating Scott’s ex, Envy. I liked that, unlike the previous books, Scott and Todd have multiple confrontations instead of just one fight that was over way too quickly. I actually felt that defeating the evil ex’s was the main plot instead of just a convenient hook used to draw the reader in to Scott and his friend’s relationship drama. The relationship drama is extra heavy in this volume due to the inclusion of Envy, the girl who broke Scott’s heart prior to the start of the series. Her and Ramona have a pretty cool fight involving a rather large hammer. There’s now a duality in the series with Scott fighting Ramona’s exes and Ramona fighting two of Scott’s exes thus far. We could look deep into this a suggest that what Bryan Lee O’Malley is trying to say that in every relationship a person can not help but at some point have to confront the exes of the other person in either a symbolic, physical, or hypothetical fashion. Or, we could just see it as an excuse for Ramona to kick-ass and establish her as a strong female character.

Anyway, I’ll post tomorrow about the remaining three volumes.