Comics Review: Steven Universe #10

“Dem Squirrels Man!”

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

This month’s issue kicks off as Steven & Connie return from a training session and during a conversation, Connie brings up a biology assignment she’s doing on animal behavior. Amethyst, of course, being the animal shape-shifter of the group offers to help but Connie politely turns her down as this requires actual wild animals for the report to work. Much of the comic devotes it’s paging to a series of comedic scenarios where Amethyst tries her best to blend in amongst the sea-animals to get Steven & Connie’s attention and while Connie believes her “Gem is in the right place” looking like the animals she can shapeshift into is not the same as behaving like one from its natural habitat.

Amethyst leaves in frustration but encounters a bunch of squirrels and decides to approach her animal shifting powers little differently by befriending them which is easily the cutest moment in this book but in the process, she gains some level of understanding as to what Connie was talking about. By coincidence, Amethyst encounters the two again and after giving an apology to Connie, she talks about the wisdom she gained from her experience with the squirrels and the story ends on a lighthearted note when Amethyst helps with Connie’s report the right way by putting that newfound wisdom from her experience with the squirrels to good use.

Our Take

With the consistent writing of Grace Kraft and Art by Rii Abrego, Kaboom entertainment’s current run never disappoints with it’s “lost episode”-like format that their Steven Universe comics are known for. Amethyst’s experiences with the squirrels were easily the highlight of the story as the interactions she has with them are cute and have almost no dialogue as opposed to Amethyst’s talkative & playful nature. Given the color scheme of Amethyst’s outfit in the issue, this story feels like it took place in a very early season as her current & ongoing redesign on the show since the season 3 episode Crack the Whip is a dramatically different redesign by comparison.