Comics Review: Steven Universe #19
Does this story have structural integrity?
Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)
In a story told by Greg and the Crystal Gems, Steven learns about the creation of the house he and the Gems live in and the events that lead to it being built next to the Gem Temple.
Our Take
As always, we’re once again graced with the talents of Grace Craft and Rii Abrego, who deliver with another story that consistently manages to succeed with it’s structured “Lost Episode” format, as this story alone feels like another plot that could’ve worked for an episode as the “story within a story” doesn’t waste time explaining the events that lead up to the Gems building their house and the motivation behind it which is to help give Steven some semblance of normalcy. (children aren’t supposed to live in caves right?)
As aforementioned/hinted in the cover, Garnet & Amethyst’s “Sugilite” Fusion does play a major role in the plot, when helping them structure the home. But understandably, due to Sugilite’s sometimes primitive & destructive nature, Pearl attempts to guide her in what they’re going for with their blueprints.
Panel-by-panel, the colors stand out but in a way that helps tell the story visually in moments where very little dialogue is used, and when conflict arises between Sugilite & Pearl, it’s thankfully resolved when Greg shows up providing much-needed wisdom on the matter. Given that it takes place long before the events of Season 5, It’s safe to assume this could’ve happened around Season 4 back when Amethyst’s redesign started wearing the white tank top, while the flashback takes place somewhere around the 80’s or 90’s while Steven was just a toddler.
Overall, This was a decent story that fills in a gap of information none of us even knew about. The art style succeeds in capturing the show along with its tone, The characters feel consistent to how they’d act on the show, and if there’s any lesson this story tries to convey, is that sometimes when building something as complex as a house, patience and understanding is required to accomplish anything.
Score
Hi Ashley, thank you so much for reading and we love the feedback. Note that on that day we had 14th posts go up and only ten posts show on the front page, so it's possible the preview had already been archived by the time you got to it. One recommendation would be to add our RSS feed to your favorite news aggregator service like Feedly, this way you get all of the latest posts!