Converging and Diverging - review of Paper Girls volume 5

 

Review:

Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang have produced an astounding and delightful series. Their richly-drawn and nuanced characters have grown as friends and as eople through the many challenges of the first four volumes - they have been shot at with both mundane and extraordinary weapons; they hae met their older selves; they have been separated and seemed lost but refound each other; they have faced lance-weilding soldiers on flying dinosaurs, and more!

Now, in this penultimate volume, the creative team finally draws together the many scattered threads and timelines of this complex blend of after-school special and the sweeter themes of Doctor Who. The seeds and references, the dreams and visions scattered through earlier scenes fially fit into this dumti-dimensional puzzle.

We start this volume in the year 2171. Our four Paper Girls plus 24-year-old Tiffany split into two teams. KJ and Mac set out in search of a twenty-second century cure for the cancer that will kill Mac in a few years. The second team sees Erin and the two Tiffanies on a quest for answers, most pressingly whether or not the Wari and Jahpo involved in this war are the same mother-and-son pair they met in the twelfth century BCE? If so, how is that possible? and can they help the girls get back home?

But nothing goes according to plan. KJ needs to pull another "badass" moment to save Mac, who must then return the favor. Their deepening mutual affection is so natural and beautiful, moments of serenity in the midst of the other perils they face.

And Erin's clever problem-solving combines beautifully with Tiffany's courage and the whole group's strong ability to talk through their problems. All of which brings them a huge step closer to home.\

But when the clone of future-Erin appears again and detonates a time-bomb, they find themselves scattered again through time. KJ tumbles into the late 1950s; Tiffany winds up in the near future; Mac in the very distant end-of-Earth future, and Erin lands in our present-day. How will they react when what had been their greatest hope yet of returning home wound up scattering them the farthest yet from that destination?

Chiang continues to dazzle panel to panel and page to page. He eschews the facile sameness of some comic artists, whose characters are not all that different and the reader relies on context, such as outfit or manner of speaking, to tell them apart. Chiang, on the other hand, so consistently renders each of these girls and characters that the same facial structure, expressions, set of the jaw or eyes carries throughout all ages for each of these girls. Senior citizen Tiffany is still recognizably the same human; even Wari is noticeable - although the tattoo markings do help drive home her identity.

And Matt Wilson continues to show off his multiple-award-winning color work through this volume, with the brilliant use of pops or panels, gently subtle when called for, or sky-spanning shocks of pink and purple on other occasions.

After a weaker fourth volume, the series feels back on track, another solid and beautiful few chapters that have set us up for a tremendous finale.

Description:

Can anyone escape fate? That's what Mac and her fellow newspaper delivery girls must discover as they escape the year 2000 and travel to the distant future. Plus, the truth behind the mysterious "old-timers" is finally revealed.

Collects: issues #21-25

Authors:  Brian K Vaughan
Artists:  Cliff Chiang, Matthew Wilson
Published By:  Image Comics
Published When:  Dec 11, 2018
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  128 pages
Pages:  978-1534308671