Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

It's an action story with family at its heart, and it balances the nation, the humor, and the character development and family aspect perfectly.   It is, in fact, almost perfect.   The humor, the action, the way a mother deals with being a single mom, and her eldest child being a superhero?   Just everything is right, and there in the right places, in the perfect proportions.   

The art is stunning, too.   Clean, as action-packed as the writing, and emotive as all get out.   

That being said, I'm not a fan of the term 'she-male'.   It's derogatory and had no place here; I'm disappointed that it was included, that it tried to be funny, and that it got past the editor.   Between that and one skipped panel on the Comixology guided view that was a pain to read as a single page, I knocked down one star - and like nine-tenths of that was the slur used as humor. 

Look, honestly, I'm going to continue reading.   It felt out of place, which tells me a couple things: this doesn't seem to be a world where slurs are normally used as humor.   Other than that, I love this series.   The fact that it's out of place means that the rest of the book wasn't offensive; if it had been, that would have felt normal.   

I already bought the next two volumes and am already considering paying for the rest of the series.   I don't know, but, eh, really like this.   That being said, and after reading Fangirl's Guide to the Galaxy, I think it's important to do what Maggs says: discuss what we find problematic even in things we love.   Calling someone who was dressed as a woman (for a movie, for some reason*) a 'she-male' isn't funny, but it helps to normalize the term.   Calling it out and knocking down a star doesn't seem to be too much to me.   Here's hoping to this being one really, really horrible decision by the author and to encountering nothing else like this.   (A human woman is called a cow, and her daughter is called a mutt and meat, but this actually accentuated how different a villain from another planet, and groomed by Thanos, thought.   I found this acceptable, partly because the term 'cow' angered the woman's son, and the villain ended up punished.   She was also, y'know, a villain, so she wasn't supposed to be sympathetic, and we aren't meant to cheer for her.   Nova, however, uses the other slur, and it was a throwaway line that could have been not included without impacting the storyline or any character development.   Even I sympathize and cheer on Nova as he's a champion of those bullied, and while he's kinda snotty and impulsive, he's also fifteen.  You're supposed to like him and you do - and thus his using a slur is far, far more problematic than the other slurs used by villains in this.)

*I choose to believe no woman in this town would be in the cheesy horror movie they were filming.  I know, I know, but this is fantasy, right?

So in conclusion, if you can't get over that one slur, don't read this.   Do whatever is comfortable for you.   If you don't care, and you want a good action/family based superhero comic, read this.   If you are bothered but are still interested in reading this, then do so and feel free to call out the problematic issues in whatever way possible.   (Oh, yeah, the whole family getting kidnapped is a bit of fridging there, so that's problematic, too.   The mother is, overall, confident, helps protect her son as much as possible, and doesn't take shit from her superpowered son.   So overall, she isn't too much of a damsel, and she deals with really tough situations really well.   She also feels like a full personality, and so does Sam's sister, although she doesn't get quite as much screen time as the focus is on Sam/Nova and his mom and their relationship and how she deals with her son being Nova.   So nothing taken off for the slight fridging, because it isn't indicative of Sam's mom in general.   Basically, it wasn't ideal, but it wasn't the most horrible thing ever given the rest of the book.)