Written by: Jeff Lemire
Art by: Emi Lenox and Jeff Lemire
Publisher: Image Comics
Plutona feels a lot like Stand By Me crossed with The Breakfast Club with just a dash of superheroes sprinkled in. It tells the story of five kids from different backgrounds who come across the dead body of the world’s most famous superhero, Plutona. The discovery tests their relationships with one another as one of the kids obsession with superheroes drives them to madness.
Plutona feels like the sort of story I like from Jeff Lemire, more so than his more recent popular work on Descender. It has a grounded feel and a very nostalgic tone for the innocence of childhood. Of course, given that Lemire is famous for books such as Sweet Tooth, this innocence is tested and eventually shattered in heartbreaking ways. Throw in some gorgeous artwork from newcomer Emi Lenox that captures the feeling of an 80s movie and you seemingly have the ingredients for another masterpiece, so why is it that this feels like the weakest of Lemire’s current crop of books?
The main problem for me is that the book feels half finished, Lemire and Lenox do an incredible job building up potential conflicts and interesting backstories for these characters that unfortunately get very little pay off by the end of the story. The ending especially comes careening out of nowhere bringing the book to a largely unsatisfactory ending. This is somewhat rectified by the trade, as when the series released monthly there was a massive gap after the first four issues were released leaving the last issue, when it finally released, to feel even more unsatisfying. Reading the series as a TPB does a lot therefore for the pacing, and made the series a little more enjoyable for me, though is a bit of a double edged sword as the characters change and develop at a much quicker pace, leaving some of the character building feeling far too fast and less organic.
The character relationships though are definitely the book’s strongest point, perfecting capturing the changing nature of childhood friendships. How previous friends such as Mie and Diane drift apart through no real reason other than changing interests feels genuinely sad, and something the audience will likely be able to relate to. The other character’s also have quite interesting backgrounds, all except Mie’s brother who I think gets about 3 or 4 lines of dialogue overall, and there’s great potential among them for great coming of age stories. The book starts out feeling like growing up in Smallville while Superman has already moved to Metropolis, a very interesting and original idea, yet the book doesn’t really capitalize on its own potential. It chooses to end with what feels like is meant to be a gut punch, but instead just feels like a hastily put together ending for a book that was meant to last longer.
This is exemplified most for me in the Plutona back up stories at the end of every chapter. They reveal her ultimate fate and a little about the world of superheroes she comes from, though again there’s very little plot threads actually given a satisfying conclusion. So much stuff is teased without ever being followed up on, and the conclusion of her story feels like a total cop out. I’ve said it before, but it really feels like there was meant to be more to this story that was cut short due to how many books Lemire is writing.
As stated though, the art in the book is simply gorgeous. Lenox captures the same nostlagic unease of Lemire’s own art style, although with a far cleaner look to it. Her character designs for the kids look great and capture a very classic style of childhood. Couple this with the rich color work of Jordie Bellaire, probably my all time favorite colorist, and you’ve got a pretty fantastic looking book. It’s a shame the script doesn’t live up to the art, especially since all the ingredients are here for a fantastic story.
Overall, there’s a lot of good in Plutona which only serves to make the overall product more disappointing. I don’t know what exactly went wrong with this project, perhaps Lemire was just spreading himself too thin with too many books, though it just doesn’t feel like it lives up to its potential. There’s a lot to like in Plutona, though it becomes hard to recommend given how little payoff the story has.
