Okay so I finished allll the Jem and the Holograms comics, the 5 volumes, the Misfits spin off, the Dimensions one-off and Infinite special and I loved all of it.

Though I haven’t seen the cartoon, it definitely made me interested in checking it out. The comic’s tone was sweet and fun and full of heart. I loved the depth imbued in all the characters and how each function as their own family and how their passion for music bleeds through. I especially enjoyed Jerrica as the main protagonist and her slight identity crisis as she gets carried away with the idea of being confident and different as Jem compared to her responsibilities as oldest sister Jerrica.

Furthermore, Rio was such a sweet boyfriend even though he started getting less attention as the volumes went on. I think vol 1 when he and Jerrica went on their date. Just the panels and their banter was very indicative of the tone of their relationship.

Also, I see why the Misfits are a fan favorite. They rock! In their messy, dysfunctional, aggressive way, they love each other. I don’t know why, but I found Jetta the most interesting. Mainly because she was so self assured in carving out who she was.

And the third rock band group, the Stingers, I wish there had been more of them. From the quick wiki search, Riot and Minx had interesting backstories and with how Kelly Thompson brought layers to the Holograms and Misfits, I think they could have done some more work on them. Especially how Riot’s estrangement from his father could work with how Jem/Jerrica wants to make her dad proud and then make the semi love triangle (quadrangle) even more tense.

Plus I was impressed by all the diversity. Especially for characters that had come from the 80s. I mean just in the Holograms alone, there were two caucasians, an Asian American, an African American and a Latina. I mean just add a Middle Eastern-American and an indigenous girl and you’d have almost all shades. And that’s without even getting into the body diversity and Lgtbq rep which they did nicely and naturally in making it a realistic diverse world. Sophie Campbell did a lovely job in making creative, expressive characters with unique styles and recognizable palatte.

The one thing I would add besides more Stingers backstory was maybe more of an arc for Aja and Kimber. Aja seemed like she had somerhing interesting going on with how her sisters thought she was going to dump Craig and that she might have commitment issues considering how she sidestepped their questions. I thought it would have been interesting if they had explored it since Aja is usually the fiercest, and snarkiest of the group and explore why she doesn’t like being vulnerable even with her boyfriend or others she loves. Idk just a thought.

Kimber… I feel like she needed to grow up a bit. I got the feeling she was the author favorite, always happy and throwing out fun comments and being cute with Stormer. And I understand she is the baby of the family and so her sisters see her that way and let her get away with things but sometimes…. I mean it felt like there were so many times when she got out of things like cleaning up the party or making concert plans. She even complained over a simple thing of answering the door as the others had mentioned they had already done the work of getting food, invites, decorations, etc.

In one of the Dimensions story, the DnD one, she tells Jerrica she needs to relax and then makes her do what she wants to do, play a DND board game and she completely ignores how she is inadvertently giving Jerrica all the work while she has fun. I just felt bad for Jerrica in that story. The others complained too but I remember Shana and Aja also offering their help and splitting up duties so Jerrica doesn’t have to do it alone. And they’re offering to help even when they have their own part time duties (Fashion design and mechanic respectively). At most, I remember Kimber offering to help by having Synergy do the work. Um..,what does Kimber do again because she is the one who wanted to have this band so badly, she should put in some of the boring duties.

I just feel like Kimber had too much maniac pixie dream girl vibes, being cuties with Stormer (who is amazing and sweet yet fierce and such a powerful role model in loving who you are and the body you have. And she makes the Misfits songs! I feel like she is so much more mature than Kimber and tbh Kimber needs to catch up to her level) and could stand to have her own arc of learning to stand on her own. After all she’s in her early 20s. That’s when you start on the workforce and living on your own. While Kimber doesn’t exactly have to split up from the rest I think she could have had her own arc of doing things without her big sisters’ help and just general responsibility stuff.

Overall, I loved all the comics and would read again. I do hope they someday revive or something, it was (say with me) totally outrageous!

4 stars