Mech Cadet Yu #12 Review

Written by: Greg Pak

Illustrated by: Takeshi Miyazawa

Colored by: Raul Angulo

Lettered by: Simon Bowland

Published by: BOOM! Studios

With this being the final issue, I bow down to this wonderful series that Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa have brought us. The mecha genre is not one that has been much explored in North American comics, at least to my knowledge, so this series from the get-go was a true breath of fresh air. And now that it is done, was it worth it? Absolutely! This is one of those series that if you did not pick up the single issues, you’d do well by picking up the trades, or hopefully down the line, an oversized hardcover collecting the whole series (and, crosses fingers, a slew of extras).

So, was this issue good? Of course it was! It’s not often that I find myself actively rooting out loud for the main characters of a story and also gasping, yes gasping, when certain things happen within a comic. And this final issue had it all! The near misses! The ultimate act of friendship! A fantastic sacrifice! And to top it off, some good old-fashioned butt-kicking by mechs who, by all accounts, have amazing personalities.

As usual, the breakout star for me with this series is the amazing art by Takeshi Miyazawa. It isn’t often that you get an artist that can actually convey emotion the way Miyazawa does from characters on a page. He goes one step further though by eliciting emotion from the mechs themselves - in particular our main mech piloting by Stanford. Complementing the art this time around is Raul Angulo whose colouring only helped add to the amazing pencils and inks.

I purposely kept the story within this issue vague for good reason: this is one of the series to read and I can promise it should not disappoint. Now, all I need is an announcement from Pak and Miyazawa that they are working on something new together, because this partnership worked wonders on this series.