Plutona #5

[cyberghostface]

Comments

[tripodeca113]

And that's why you should never go into the woods without adult supervision.

Apparently there was a film version of this announced, but since there's been no news on it since 2016, and the company who was making it hasn't released a film since 2018.....well draw your own conclusions.

[leahandillyana]

What a bummer.

[strejdaking]

Okay...

So, I think a lot of times when people ask "what's the point" they are actually being lazy."Oh, so they jerks act like jerks, what's the point", they say about a story that literally has a guy kill brown people while dressed in American flag. So I will try here.

So, the central theme here seems to be kids desiring to be special. It's not shown in the sscans, but Plutona has a job she hates and neglects her kid. There's the standard bad boy with abusive dad, the good girl who starts to hang out with him, her friend wants to look tough and confident and obviously the kid who wants to be superhero to not be weak. It shows that this is ultimately fruitless and self-destructive.

With that said, yeah this still seem like pretty dissapointing end. Stories don't have to end with characters accomplishing things or growing, but the dead kid is the only one who really has a story. Like, apparently the girl coming back to help her friend and the bad boy is supposed to be the resolution of that whole subplot? This just seems like a character piece, where we never really find out more about or see change in any but one character, and even that isn't particularly interesting.

If anyone here sees more in this or wants to discuss it, I would love to hear your take.

[cyberghostface]

Yeah I felt more could have been done with the character relationships.

[lucean]

Yeah, what makes it even weirder is Lemire mentioned both Mean Creek and Stand By Me, but both of those are coming-of-age films which end up the characters in a different place than to start with. So to have this static and quasi-nihilistic arc is just baffling if those are the comparisons you want to evoke.

[fra080389]

So, the asian kid is the next?

[blueprintstyles]

...is that it?

[super_fly]

The end! No moral.

[cyberghostface]

Why does it need one?

[strejdaking]

Because it doesn't really have anything else instead.

[cyberghostface]

It has a complete narrative. I would have personally given it a epilogue showing the kids at school the next day for some additional closure but otherwise there doesn’t need to be much else in terms of the main story.

[strejdaking]

There definitely does. As it is, it's very empty narrative with no real point. Like, what is this? It's not an action story, or comedy, not particularly scary as a horror... Closest thing it gets to is a character drama, with pretty threadbear characters and only one of the characters really has an arc. Nothing with the other kids goes anywhere.

[cyberghostface]

It’s a dark coming of age story set in the backdrop of a superhero universe. It’s about loss of innocence, etc.

[super_fly]

It was a reference http://achewood.com/index.php?date=04032006

[cyberghostface]

Ah ok, sorry.

[informationgeek]

Yeah... I like Jeff Lemire. I really do... but this was so below his usual work. Barely much in the way of characterization or arcs, a story that felt super dragged out, and a wet fart of an ending that doesn't really so much ends as it just stops, like it ran out of gas.

This was a good follow up to Sweet Tooth, which was Lemire at his absolute best, while Plutona is him at his absolute worst.

[deh_tommy]

So, like, how long was Plutona out for? Why didn’t she try to help Teddy?