Norman Osborn is in charge of Thunderbolts, and he transforms them into a group of superheroes who catch unregistered superhumans. In reality, most of these heroes are villains, including Venom and Bullseye. What matters is their public image in the media, however things go wrong since their first mission. They simply have no team work, not to mention that some of them are just crazy homicidal maniacs.

The first arc ends with many members injured, Steel Spider’s arm is eaten by Venom, American Eagle puts Bullseye in a coma and Jillian runs away to Europe.

However that’s nothing compared to what happens to the second half of this run. A group of telepaths get voluntarily arrested, their plan is to infiltrate the Thunderbolts LQ and kill them from inside. They do things very subtly, planting seeds into already crazy Thunderbolt members, including Osborn and Strucker.

They managed to kill a lot of people, but in the end Bullseye wakes up from his coma and kills them in their prison cells. Osborn finds an excuse, but Doc Samson was there and he knows about it (not to mention he has the video from the security cameras).

This run really shows what is wrong with these people, and that they cannot function normally. This is not a typical superhero series at all, which is something I’m always interested in.

Deodato’s art is better and better, it’s now in a more realistic style, so much that Osborn is clearly based on Tommy Lee Jones. At times it annoyed me a little, but overall he’s a great artist that managed to reinvent himself. The moody colors also help a lot.

Issue 589 is a standalone story about Spot and the Russian mob. Nothing fancy, but good.

Dan Slott writes the next two issues with Barry Kitson on art, starring the Fantastic Four. The adventure takes place in the Macroverse, but what’s interesting here is the explanation that Peter knows about Mephisto’s mindwipe. That’s odd to me, but I guess it’s part of the ongoing mystery. But then Spidey unmasks himself again! There’s another big revelation here, JJJ is the new mayor of NYC! Wow, I didn’t see that coming!

Once Peter finds out about the new mayor, he goes on a 24/7 quest to fight crime and stick it to JJJ (by Waid, McKone, Kitson). But in the end the true reason surfaces: Norman Osborn. I found it odd that all of a sudden he’s loved by the public, but just as fast he’s back to being despised. Meantime, Peter gets a new roommate, and JJ Senior proposes to May.

In American Son (595-599) Joe Kelly writes the next big arc involving the Osborns. Lily tricks Harry into believing she’s expecting his baby, when it’s actually Norman’s baby, which is very creepy. Spidey tries to help Harry, but he just ends up being beaten by the Dark Avengers. Instead, Harry can take care of himself and gets the upper hand on Norman. He almost kills him, but Peter stops him. Now Harry is truly out of Norman’s shadow. I wish they didn’t have so many different artists for this story line, but schedules were very tight. I still can’t believe that Harry fell for Lily’s trick, though at least he didn’t fall for his father. I liked the scenes with Peter joking about being JJJ’s brother.

The Annual 36 is a prologue for an upcoming story featuring the return of Ben Reilly. I’m curious to learn how he’ll come back. I was surprised that May’s family weren’t that close, it looked like she hadn’t seen them in ages!

And finally, the big anniversary issue 600. I like that there is one creative team (Slott/JRJR) for the main story, which is about 60 pages long. It’s about the return of Doc Ock, who has a new look that feels like the costume in Kick Ass (another JRJR comic). This is a big scale story involving all of NY and many of its heroes (F4 and Avengers). In the end Ock escapes, but it was a fun story. This is also where May’s wedding takes place, with a surprise guest at the end: MJ!!

There are also many short stories here, some good some less so. I really liked the Stan Lee/Marcos Martin one, it was surprisingly funny. Waid/Doran’s story about how Uncle Ben learns to be a father to Peter was touching.

The last one is another prologue to a future storyline involving Madam Web and a mysterious girl.

Overall this series continues to be fun to read, with some big twists but nothing that really changes much. The quality of the drawings is very high though, so I’m happy about this series. I guess with the increased shipping schedule, they can afford to stretch their stories even longer, but I didn’t see a lot of resolutions in this batch of issues.

There are 15 stories in this 12 issue series, and to me they are pretty evenly distributed in terms of quality. The good, the bad and the meh.

I first started to read each issue every week, then stopped at issue 6. Once the last issue shipped, I read them all by story, instead of by issue.

Here are the ones I liked:

- Batman: the creators of 100 Bullets can do no wrong, so this crime story delivered. Bruce was surprisingly very involved in this story, which makes the ending even better. I hated that the first panel was wasted on the title of the anthology. Did we really need that? It’s already on the cover!!

- Kamandi: I am not familiar with either Kamandi or Prince Valiant (the strip that inspired this story’s style), but I was very interested in this epic adventure. Tiger, Gorillas, Lions tribes battling for supremacy in a post apocalyptic world. Kamandi is the last man on Earth, or so it appears. There’s action, tragedy and even hope at the end. Plus Ryan Sook’s art is gorgeous.

- Strange Adventures: Adam Strange is reinvented by Paul Pope here, so that there’s a central theme of duality between Strange on Earth and on Rann. Alanna makes for a good female co-star, which is why I think this strip was not just called Adam Strange. I like Gorgo’s final fate on Earth. The art is very inventive, especially the way the villains are drawn.

- Flash: this strip does a great job with the layout of such a large page. It starts with 2 different stories splitting the page in half. Two stories that differ in style and theme. As the story goes on, the strips start to meld together, but there is always something new and surprising. The story is just an all out time travel fun, something that doesn’t need to be explained, it’s just fun.

- Hawkman: there’s not much to this story other than big action scenes with many different subjects. I like that this is on such a big scale that the whole JLA is involved. First we get a hijacked plane. Then Hawkman fights big aliens. Then they end up on Dinosaur Island. Finally Hawkman is helped by Aquaman. Just well done big action scenes.

Here are the stories that I didn’t like.

- Superman: it’s a pity that this strip was chosen to represent the series in papers. Superman comes off as a whiny bitch, and we see all the cliché scene you’d expect from a Superman story: Superman wonders about his identity, he goes to the barn that shines a white light. Of course there is a reason for his whiny behavior, but it doesn’t matter because it’s predictable and unpleasant. I also didn’t like the coloring, which ruined the usually good art by Bermejo.

- Titans: all other stories are new reader-friendly, except for this one. Without knowledge of the Titans history, I couldn’t enjoy the “clever” twist of the identity of the villain. Even before that, the story relied too much on the characters’ past. The art is a generic animation style, that just doesn’t mesh well with the other stories. The storytelling is also not very good, it all feels more like a series of pin-ups.

- Sgt Rock: Joe Kubert is a legend, but I don’t think he succeeds here. He doesn’t take advantage of the bigger page size, so even though his art looks good, I wasn’t excited. The story is the biggest problem here though. Nothing much happens, for 6 pages Rock is interrogated. For the rest there’s just a long fight. I admit I’ve never read Sgt Rock before, so that might be why I didn’t like this at all.

- Demon and Catwoman: this is another strip that totally failed to interest me. First of all the pairing of these characters is an odd choice that doesn’t work at all. My dislike of Demon and his speech doesn’t help matters. The plot is very simple and boring. The art is not bad, but compared to the rest of the stories, it pales.

- Wonder Woman: I admit Caldwell’s ambition and experimentation. He really tried to use the format in a different way. Unfortunately it just doesn’t work for me at all. Both the art and the words are barely readable, add to that a confusing story and it’s clear this was a failure.

The rest of the bunch are just ok.

- Green Lantern: the story is just bland, nothing too exciting. At first I didn’t like the art, but I must say it grew on me. Not bad, but I expected more from Busiek.

- Deadman: interesting art and layouts, it certainly tries to utilize all that space in a different way. I wasn’t wowed by the story, but I liked the twist ending.

- Metamorpho: I like the layouts, Allred tried different things in different pages. Though some of them didn’t work as a weekly page. The story was very uneven, some pages are exciting, others just don’t work. The pages with the elements table were cute in concept, but in practice it was boring. And we certainly didn’t need two of those.

- Supergirl: this is “cute” story with some clean and exciting art from Conner. That being said, it was a little too “kiddie” for me. I did like the Aquaman cameo, that was really funny. At the end we actually get a satisfying explanation about all the craziness.

- Metal Men: this started as a funny action story, which I actually didn’t find that funny. However I was surprised by the ending, which took a tragic turn. I understand that’s typical of Metal Men story, but I’m not familiar with their comics. The art though is classic superhero fun.

There are a few different stories in this series, the main one is about Conner. He’s trying to find his identity after his resurrection, since his DNA is half from Superman and half from Lex Luthor. This is mainly a character piece, not only about Conner himself, but also about his relationships with other characters (Robin and Wonder Girl). It’s all about who he wants to be, and by the end it’s clear that he’s his own person. There’s a subplot about Luthor and his niece, which really shows how evil/twisted Luthor is, I was surprised by that subplot. The art by Manipul is great, clear art that’s not too realistic like everything else in the stands these days.

The other big story is about the other Superboy, Prime. Last time (Legion of 3 Worlds) we left him in the “real world”, living with his parents who knew about him and what he did. Here he keeps posting on message boards and being whiny, which is taking the metaphor a bit too literal, without any subtlety at all. This story is a tie-in to Blackest Knight, though it has nothing to do with the main story. Here we see Alex Luthor resurrect and fighting Superboy Prime. It was kind of amusing seeing the real world in the story, but it’s just a gimmick. I do like the art by Ordway, somehow his style just fits perfectly for this story.

There are also short back up stories about the Legion. These are mainly standalone stories that continue threads and characters from previous Johns stories. They’re fine for whoever read the previous stories, but they’re not especially great. The art by Henry is generic modern superhero style, nothing too fancy but perfectly fine.

Johns left the series which is a pity, because it means all his ideas about the Legion will be lost or changed by Paul Levitz. His Conner stories are also over, though this story was satisfying on its own. This really felt like an anthology series for misc Johns ideas that couldn’t fit into his regular books. That guy has ideas for all DC characters.

I am not familiar with the convoluted Legion history, but all I had to know was that there are 3 versions of them and they all come together in this story. They fight the perfect counterpart to their inspiration Superman: Superboy Prime who inspired the Legion of Super-Villains.

A lot happens in this story, including the resurrection of Connor and Impulse. Just for that, this story will be remembered as an important one in DC history. But the conflict with Superboy contains a twist about the identity of the Time Trapper. This being a time travel story, I had a lot of fun with it.

We also get to see the future of the Green Lantern Corps, which is obviously relevant for the current Blackest Night event.

The art by George Perez is perfectly suited for this type of story. Not only there are 3 full teams of heroes, but they’re actually 3 different versions of the same characters. That’s a huge challenge, but Perez has no problems with it.

This really is the culmination of many different stories, which is a bit weird since there are revelations about stories told in other series months ago.

The narrator in this story resembles Gaiman himself, and he’s telling about his childhood memories. It involves his encounters with members of the mob, though as a child he obviously didn’t know.

What’s interesting is that his memories are obviously distorted, and he himself admits that some things may not be accurate. He even changes the appearance of a character throughout the story, because he doesn’t really know which one is correct.

McKean’s style is perfect for this type of story, giving it a dream-like atmosphere, where things change constantly.

In the end we might not know for sure what really happened, but it’s fun to speculate based on the memories.

They picked a perfect place in the story to take a break, because the first arc “King of Hell’s Kitchen” takes place 1 year later. Matt has really cleaned up his district, nobody dares to do crime in his territory. However he only pushed the problems to different areas, which is why other superheroes are not happy with what he’s done. We also find out that he secretly married Milla, and now he has to deal with the Yakuza. With the help of Luke and Danny Rand he defeats them, but in the meantime Milla realizes that he started all this because Karen Page died. So she leaves him. It’s ironic that the person who realizes this is Ben Urich, not Foggy. Then again, Ben is a journalist, it’s his job to notice these things. This is a good setup arc that lays the ground of the new status quo.

The next arc is “The Widow”, which obviously deals with the Black Widow. This is more about global espionage than city crime, but it was a nice change of pace. The scope is larger here, with Nick Fury and Shield involved. It’s almost a preview of what Bendis will do with the whole Marvel Universe later in his career. As for Matt, he has to deal with Milla leaving him and simultaneously having Widow in his life again. In the end he realizes that he loves Milla, but he can’t keep her if she doesn’t want him, so he gives her the annulment.

Issue 65 is called “The Universe” and is a standalone issue with many guest artists. Each segment deals with how other Marvel characters deal with what happened to Matt during Bendis’ run. We see Fury offering Matt to become a Shield agent. Peter Parker is worried about Matt but also about his own secret identity. Captain America also offered him to become an Avenger. Punisher wants to take out the new Kingpin, Daredevil. Matt talks to Doc Strange, hoping he might bring Karen back. The epilogue introduces the next arc: Alexander Bont is released from prison.

“Golden Age” is without a doubt the most interesting arc from a visual standpoint. Alexander Bont was the kingpin before Wilson Fisk, now he’s an old man and is out of prison. With many flashbacks we learn about his past, how he started out, how he became the boss, and how he was imprisoned. These flashbacks are told in different styles: first it’s all black & white, then it’s with old coloring. Maleev and colorist Dave Stewart did a phenomenal job here. Bont’s story is intersected with that of the Gladiator, both in the past and the present. Bont uses Gladiator to help him capture Matt and torture him. Bont is so intent in destroying Matt that he doesn’t even realize that he’s destroying himself with MGH. Gladiator’s story was tragic, unfortunately his past caught up with him again. There’s also a subplot about Del Toro, the new White Tiger. This arc went back to telling mob stories, delving into the past of organized crime. Another great crime story.

The “Decalogue” is an unusual story: it starts with a therapy group where people discuss how their lives have been affected by Daredevil becoming Kingpin. At first it’s self contained stories marginally related to Daredevil, but slowly we realize that some of these stories are connected, and there’s the mystery of a miniature devil figure. I like the mystery aspect of the story, I had no idea what was going on. I also like the revelation that Matt was in this group all along, but once he starts explaining everything, it becomes another superhero story. The setup was more interesting than the payoff.

We’re now at the final arc of this amazing run. All hell breaks loose, all the major players are back (Fisk, Urich, Elektra, Widow, Bullseye, Milla), and we finally get the payoff to Matt’s secret identity problem. It’s a tense roller coaster, but I want to focus on the end. I loved the fantasy where Matt escapes from trial and lives with Milla, then Elektra, but in the end he doesn’t have anything to live for. So instead, he decides not to run and goes to prison. That’s a great payoff to the main plot of this run. Bendis went all out and didn’t back down at all. He didn’t let people magically forget about Daredevil’s identity, he didn’t try to make it go away. Instead he let Matt face the consequences, legally. That’s just a great ending to this run.

This is one of the greatest runs in superhero comics for me, not surprising since I love crime comics so much. To me, this run paired with Alias are Bendis’ best work at Marvel. He recently re-united with Maleev on Spider-Woman, so I’m hoping that run will be as good as this one.

But this being the Marvel universe, this is not the end of the series. Instead Ed Brubaker is gonna pick up the reigns and it’s thanks to him that Bendis could write this ending.  They couldn’t have chosen better successors to Bendis and Maleev: Brubaker and Michael Lark are famous for their collaborations on crime comics like Scene of the Crime and Gotham Central. I can’t wait to read their run starting with Matt in prison.

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Following are my notes.

- The King of Hell’s Kitchen: 1 year later, hell’s kitchen is clean now, secretly married Milla, other heroes not happy with Matt, he just pushed the problems to other areas. Present, attacked by Japanese army, Milla can’t find him and goes to Ben. Ben finds him in a private clinic, recovering. Once recovered he asks Luke and Iron Fist to help him defeat the Yakuza. Ben realizes that Matt is doing all this because of Karen’s death, then Foggy tells Milla, and she leaves.
- The Widow: Milla wants annulment. Avengers capture Madam Hydra in Bulgaria, but government doesn’t want to release her, unless they get Black Widow. Fury warns her and she goes hiding. She goes to Matt, fight together in public, targeted by sniper, who almost defeats Daredevil, but runs away. Jigsaw also angry with Daredevil, attacks and Widow beats him. Fury finds the sniper and the Bulgarian director paid him. Widow goes to him and he was the Red Guardian, married to her. He’s now back from the dead, powerful but wanted to risk it all to kill Widow. Now he’s taken now by Avengers. Matt gives Milla annulment.
- The Universe (guest artists): stand alone issue with flashbacks to when Matt was outed in the papers. Fury offered him to work for Shield. Peter worried for Matt but also for himself. Cap offered to be in Avengers. Punisher wants to take out the new Kingpin. Matt apologizes to Strange after harsh talk, asks if he can bring Karen back. Epilogue: Agent Del Toro learns about release of Alexander Bont.
- Golden Age: Bont in 3 time periods: black & white, old coloring, present. Matt captured by Gladiator, flashbacks to Gladiator and Bont in past. Bont records Matt being tortured. Before Matt was captured, agent Del Toro goes to him and asks him about the White Tiger. She’s the new White Tiger. She learns what it is to become a superhero. She helps Matt with Gladiator, Bont takes MGH and dies. Gladiator back in jail. Flashback, Bont is in prison, so now Wilson Fisk can be new boss.
- Decalogue: therapy for people to discuss how their lives were affected after Daredevil became kingpin. Mystery about a little devil monster. Matt was in the group following Lawrence, who made Jester possessed by little devil, a secret of “the hand”. Lawrence escapes but kills himself.
- The Murdock Papers: Fisk makes deal with feds: give them proof of Matt as Daredevil, in exchange he walks and leaves country. Milla goes back to Matt. Elektra shows up, knows about the Murdock Papers, they go to retrieve it. Widow and White Tiger show up, but leave letting Matt and Elektra deal with Bullseye. They defeat him but feds shoot Matt. They escape, but Fisk tells them that Urich knows where they are. Elektra brings Matt to night nurse, calls the Hand. Widow also brings Milla. Feds show up and fight ninjas and Iron Fist/Cage. Matt doesn’t want to fight, surrenders. Matt in trial, fantasizes about escaping and reuniting with Milla in Paris, but she’s killed by Bullseye, he kills him and goes to Japan to Elektra. Then go back to reality, he declares himself not guilty and is imprisoned. Fisk is released, but soon after is arrested for murder. Owl gave feds proof. They’re all locked in a floating prison island.

Mack previously wrote an arc drawn by Quesada, and drew an arc wrote by Bendis. This time he both writes and draws, so it really feels like a “David Mack” comic, like Kabuki.

There’s not much plot in this arc. Echo comes back to NY to find Matt with a new girlfriend, she also visits Fisk in prison, then goes to see a native American Chief, who brings her through a vision quest. During this she meets Wolverine, and has a revelation.

What’s important here are the themes explored by Maya Lopez. She is a storyteller, but she has her own language. A language that she needs to find before she can be her own person. It’s all very meta, since this is also about comic story telling, and how Mack himself has a very unique style to tell his stories.

I’m not sure I buy Logan’s appearance in this story, it seems a bit too convenient. But he does have an important role in Maya’s growth.

I realize this is not a story for everybody and it’s very different from what Bendis is doing. But being a fan of Mack I enjoyed this story. It’s as close to his own sensibility as he can get in the Marvel universe, so I’m happy about that.

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Here are my notes.

- Echo: Maya is a storyteller, but she needs to learn her own language first, to tell her stories. Like a comic book artist. She runs away and tries to find herself in art. Comes back and finds Matt with a new girlfriend. Goes to see Kingpin in prison. Goes to Rez, finds Chief, than goes on vision quest. Meets Wolverine during the fasting. Logan tells her of the story that her father told the Chief: the part of you that thrives, is the part that you feed the most. She learns from her own father’s words, and now she’s enacting plays as Maya Lopez. Very meta, about story telling.

Their run is mainly a crime comic, smoothly mixed with superheroes. Bendis jumps back and forth between different timelines, as he always does with his crime stories. There are plenty of dialogs as well as action scenes, but at the heart of this run is Matt Murdock outed as Daredevil.

It all starts in “Underboss”, where a new player in the crime organization tries to take out Kingpin. It’s very typical of mob stories, but it’s very well done and obviously has a superhero twist to it. That’s valid for most of the run.

In “Out”, the feds learn about Murdock’s identity, and one detective leaks it to the press. Matt then decides to sue the paper and denying the truth.

“Trial of the Century” was a misleading title, as well as a slightly disappointing story arc. It’s not Matt’s trial, it’s about the White Tiger. This will be relevant later on, but for the most part this arc doesn’t really fit into the bigger arc. It is a tragic story that ends with the death of White Tiger. The art is done by fill-in artists, who are good but they’re just not Maleev.

“Lowlife” introduces a very important character: Milla. She is blind and starts dating Matt. Meanwhile the Kingpin’s territory is taken by the Owl, who sells a new drug, MGH. Matt defeats him and he’s imprisoned. The Owl’s reign was very short, so short that he felt like small fish compared to Kingpin. Who is now back in town.

That’s what “Hardcore” deals with. We learn what happened to Kingpin after his wife Vanessa shipped him abroad in a coma. Now Kingpin is back and looking for revenge. He employs his best assassins, Typhoid Mary and Bullseye. It was fun seeing Kingpin trying to re-build his empire from scratch, something I hadn’t seen before. The end of the arc is another shocker: Daredevil defeats Fisk and takes his place as Kingpin! Also, Milla keeps dating him despite being in danger all the time.

Alex Maleev’s style is realistic without looking stiff. His faces resemble real life faces, but they’re also very expressive. His action scenes are very dynamic and work well with both superheroes and “normal” people. This is obviously a very noir style, perfect for this crime series, but at the same time it works well with man and women in tights. His women in particular are very attractive, luckily he got to draw many of Daredevil’s women (Black Widow, Elektra, Typhoid Mary and Milla). At times I had difficulty recognizing Kingpin, all bald men look the same to me (and they look like Bendis!).

Here ends the first part of Bendis/Maleev’s run, 25 issues that see Matt dealing with the crime organization once and for all, as well as dealing with legal troubles regarding Daredevil’s identity. He also picks up a new girlfriend, a blind one. A great run so far, full of surprises.

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Following are my raw notes about these issues.

- Underboss: Sam Silke is new man working for Kingpin, he learns from Kingpin’s son about Matt/Daredevil. Silke puts bounty on Matt, makes move to take out Kingpin with other capos. Kingpin wounded but not dead, his wife Vanessa takes out the people who did this, including her son. Silke is afraid and goes to feds, tells them about Matt. Daredevil defending from bounty hunters, trying to find out what happened.
- Out: Silke tells det about Matt, but he’s still imprisoned. Captain didn’t want it to leak, but one det tells Daily Globe. Urich and Peter defend Matt to JJJ. Matt struggling, doesn’t know what to do. Decides to sue the Globe. Electra shows up. He finds det, who disappears. Now Globe has no source, can’t win. But Globe’s owner still wants to fight in court, because of Matt’s lying.
- Trial of the Century: misleading title, not about Matt but White Tiger, who’s loser. He loses his temper in court, is found guilty, freaks out and runs, then is killed by cops. Matt finds the real guilty, who confesses to police. Too late.
- Lowlife: Milla is blind, saved by Daredevil. The Owl took Kingpin’s territory by force, after Vanessa sold it to others. He produces MGH. Globe’s owner decapitated. Milla goes to Matt, recognizes him and they start dating. During the date, police comes asking about the murder. Owl ordered the murder. Owl caught by feds, tries to escape, captured by Daredevil. Kingpin is back in town.
- Hardcore: Kingpin (couldn’t recognize him) gets Typhoid Mary out of retirement, kills his old consiglieri. Was left in a foreign country to heal, Vanessa disappeared with his money, his connections are gone. Milla still wants to date Matt, but Mary arrives. Flashback: Kingpin slowly building his empire, picking up scraps from Owl’s leftover. Mary attacks Matt, Jessica and Luke help. Millie still wants to be with Matt. Bullseye comes to Kingpin. He attacks Matt, almost kills Milla, but Daredevil is furious and carves his face. Doesn’t kill him, give him to FBI. Milla is still happy to see him!?!? Kingpin tries to talk to other bosses, tries to bully his way in, but one of them tells him he’s done. Then Daredevil comes in and fights Kingpin. He wins, then takes it to the other bosses and tells them to leave or change, now Daredevil is in charge.

Before I started reading this, I thought it would be a philosophical/psychological essay more than a story. A little too cerebral and intellectual. And it is that, but it also has a lot of heart, because at the center of this book is a love story, between Asterios and his wife Hana.

This is not an original story: husband drives away wife, than has life changing revelation that allows him to grow and get back to his wife. However it is something that everybody can identify with and can appreciate.

The way this story is told though is original and masterful. Mazzuchelli uses a lot of metaphors and allegories, utilizing classic stories like Ulysses, Gilgamesh, Orpheus etc…

Each character is drawn in a different style that reflects their persona. For example Asterios is always drawn in profile, as if he’s pretentious and doesn’t need to look anyone in the eyes. He even uses different fonts for each character.

But the best scene to illustrate this technique is when Asterios and Hana first meet. They start with their own different styles: Asterios is drawn in blue polygons, in straight lines, Hana is drawn in smooth lines in red. Once they start to click during their conversation, they slowly start to blend and complement each other.

Usually they’re depicted normally, without polygons or colors. But whenever they have a fight, they revert back to the opposing styles. This is just a brilliant way of conveying their emotions and characteristics in a totally visual way.

There are plenty of examples of Mazzuchelli’s genius, so I urge you to read this book. It’s well worth reading and thinking about it, not to mention re-reading it over and over.