Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness by Bryan Lee O'Malley

This is the one where things become both more and less complicated. On balance, probably less overall, by the end, which is unusual for the mid-point of a series.

For any Gen Z readers coming to Scott Pilgrim for the first time (or, I guess, older people who managed to miss it): this is a six-book graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley, in a manga-inspired format and video game-inspired world, about a twenty-something slacker from Toronto and his friends, mostly about how he meets a new girlfriend and has to defeat her seven evil exes, but also partly about his band and some related stuff. The six books all came out in the back half of the Aughts, so I guess they're core Millennial culture, if you want to generation-type them, but Scott himself is such a stereotypical slacker that this Gen X guy found him and his world instantly recognizable.

Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness is the third book; the first two were Precious Little Life and Vs. the World. Current editions have color by Nathan Fairbairn; original publication was in black and white.

This one is the all-exes-all-the-time volume: Scott's new girlfriend Ramona Flowers (the quirky, cool American with a mysterious past) had a previous boyfriend, Todd Ingram, who is the bassist in the hot new band The Clash at Demonhead. And Scott's ex-girlfriend, Envy Adams, is the leader of that band. So there's bad blood all around with TCaD - even more so because Envy's band is more slick, successful, and success-oriented.

TCaD is in Toronto; they're playing some shows, and Scott's band Sex Bob-omb is opening for them. Which is just as awkward - for Scott in particular - as it sounds.

So there's a lot of scenes here of Scott uncomfortable around Envy - she basically kicked him and Steven Stills out of the band the three of them founded, back in high school, and Scott is not known for being comfortable with conflict and ambition and stress in the first place. And there's a fair bit of flashback, to show those older relationships - Ramona with Todd, Scott with Envy, and even Envy with Todd, since they're together now. (Well, relatively together - Todd is a cheater there as well as on a level that will affect his fighting abilities later in the book.)

On the positive side, Scott's most recent ex, the teenager Knives Chau, is less obsessed with him here and more with Envy. She's maybe growing up a bit, and, as of this point, seems to be over Scott and settling into a new relationship with Young Neil.

And, of course, there are some fights. Scott is at first utterly incapable of fighting Todd - who has superpowers because he's a vegan, in one of the best-known and most amusing minor plot points of the series - and there are other small and large battles throughout, including the quick bit where Knives gets the highlights punched out of her hair.

The whole Scott Pilgrim saga has a wonderful control of tone and an infectious joy in its own fictional structures - there's a lovely sequence early in this book that runs through nearly the whole cast, during the first tense meeting with Envy and her band, with captions to say what everyone wants at that moment. There's a lot of similar moments, where O'Malley is playing with the comics form and with his video-game references, both to make jokes and to quirkily underline serious moments. (When Scott tries to run to access a "save point," we can feel his flop sweat and panic.)

In some ways, this book is the core of the whole series - sure, it's not all resolved here, and you can see O'Malley setting some of the hooks for the back half - but this is where the Scott-Envy-Ramona-Todd broken quadrangle happens, and that's one of the major foci of the whole story.

But, of course, even after getting past Todd here, Scott knows: there are four evil exes yet to fight.