History ComicBook / Monstress

CheerfulChild: Kippa - surprisingly, and betraying a surprising bravery for what she's been though - is often this.

MagicalGesture: All the time. A particularly memorable one is when [[spoiler: a Cumaea leader mysteriously drains an Inquisitrix of life force in a way suspiciously similar to Maika's]].

ChildrenForcedToKill: Several Arcanic children, including Maika herself (who is only a teen when the series starts, and much younger in often-violent flashbacks) have to kill to survive throughout the series.

EvilSlinks: Some of the Cumaea move with disturbing elegance.

LittleBitBeastly: Most Arcanics - excluding Maika, who is the only Arcanic thus far seen who has a fully human appearance - have horns, animal ears, wings, or some other animal-like trait, but are mostly humanoid. This is in contrast to the Ancients, who range from looking like talking animals to simply having animal heads.

LanternJawOfJustice: [[spoiler: Rezak.]]

EyesDoNotBelongThere: The Monstra.

EyesDoNotBelongThere: The Monstra. *shivers*

BodyHorror: Maika has a monster-god living ''inside her body'', which usually shows itself in the form of ''tentacles bursting out of the stump of her severed arm.''

BarbieDollAnatomy: The very first panel is Maika being sold as a slave. She's completely naked, with a collar around her neck and the slavemaster's whip threateningly lifting her chin up, but any sexual features are noticeably absent. Whether that's the art, the audience, or Arcanics actually have no SecondarySexualCharacteristics, is not known.

MayflyDecemberRomance: How Arcanics came about. According to Professor Tam Tam, Ancients just can't resist human "company."

ChildrenForcedToKill: Several Arcanic children, including Maika herself (who is only a teen when the series starts, and much younger in often-violent flashbacks) have to kill to survive throughout the series.

The place, created by writer Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda, is an alternate [[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/monstress_04_1_7.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]] 1900's Asia with magical, steampunk, and Ancient Egyptian elements. The time is during a truce between the Federation of Man and the Arcanic Empire. But thanks to an order of human witch-nuns called the Cumaea, who rule the Federation of Man with manipulation, propaganda, threats, torture, coercion, and a well-placed murder here and there, none of that is going to last long.

The place, created by writer Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda, is an alternate 1900's Asia with magical, steampunk, and Ancient Egyptian elements. The time is during a truce between the Federation of Man and the Arcanic Empire. But thanks to an order of human witch-nuns called the Cumaea, who rule the Federation of Man with manipulation, propaganda, threats, torture, coercion, and a well-placed murder here and there, none of that is going to last long. [[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/monstress_04_1_7.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]

The place, created by writer Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda, is an alternate 1900's Asia with magical, steampunk, and Ancient Egyptian elements. The time is during a truce between the Federation of Man and the Arcanic Empire. But thanks to an order of human witch-nuns called the Cumaea, who rule the Federation of Man with manipulation, propaganda, threats, torture, coercion, and a well-placed murder here and there, none of that is going to last long.

RapidAging: This happens to victims of Maika [[spoiler: and a few other characters, without explanation]] when the Monstra "feeds" off of them.

!!Monstress contains examples of:

!![Monstress] contains examples of:

A lot of powerful factors are trying to use Maika as a pawn towards their own goals, including the Dawn Court, the Cumaea, [[spoiler: the Dusk Court]], Lady Atena and [[spoiler: her Arcanic brother]], quite possibly Master Ren, the Monstra itself, and others. But Maika is no pawn. And she never will be.

The place is an alternate 1900's Asia with magical, steampunk, and Ancient Egyptian elements. The time is during a truce between the Federation of Man and the Arcanic Empire. But thanks to an order of human witch-nuns called the Cumaea, who rule the Federation of Man with manipulation, propaganda, threats, torture, coercion, and a well-placed murder here and there, none of that is going to last long.

Joining Maika as she searches for answers about her dead mother and her secrets, as well as the fact that she has an ancient StarfishAlien god [[BodyHorror inside her body]], is an eclectic and often strange RagtagBandOfMisfits. There's Kippa, a young [[LittleBitBeastly fox girl]] who is still very much a child despite having been rescued from a Cumaea compound, which means she's definitely seen some horrors in her life, Master Ren, ThePhilosopher EccentricMentor cat with two tails, [[MysteriousBacker questionable motives]], and impossible knowledge, and a few extras, such as the boy with no arms [[spoiler: who is eaten by Maika under the influence of the Monstra]] and Emilia, a friendly human woman who helps the three get back to Arcanic territory at the risk or her own life.

Joining Maika as she searches for answers about her dead mother and her secrets, as well as the fact that she has an ancient StarfishAlien god [[BodyHorror inside her body]], is an eclectic and often strange RagtagBandOfMisfits. There's Kippa, a young [[LittleBitBeastly fox girl]] who is still very much a child despite having been rescued from a Cumaea compound, which means she's definitely seen some horrors in her life, Master Ren, a

Joining Maika as she searches for answers about her dead mother and her secrets, as well as the fact that she has an ancient StarfishAlien god [[BodyHorror inside her body]], is an eclectic and often strange RagtagBandOfMisfits.

Soon, Maika and her monster reach a tentative truce, where it feeds on her enemies or anyone she can find who isn't important to her, and she gets advice from its [[TimeAbyss vast knowledge]] in various situations (not that she always, by which I mean ever, follows it).

Soon, Maika and her monster reach a tentative truce, where it feeds on her enemies or anyone she can find who isn't important to her, and she gets advice from its [[TimeAbyss vast knowledge]]

Living in her body, underneath her skin, is a Monstra. Known as the "Old Gods," Monstra are ExactlyWhatItSaysOntheTin: terrible monsters, older than even the Ancients, long ago banished to the outer universe by the goddess Ubasti and her children, the sapient, wise but usually eccentric and poetry-crazed cats. Many Arcanics worship them and try to placate them with sacrifices, but in the words of the impossibly wise Professor Tam Tam (who does not appear as a character, but whose lectures are present as extra world-building information in the back of each issue, if you want to read them): "There is nothing divine about the Old Ones. They are horrors." And one is living inside her... and it is ''[[HorrorHunger hungry.]]''

Living in her body, underneath her skin, is a Monstra. Known as the "Old Gods," Monstra are ExactlyWhatItSaysOntheTin: terrible monsters, older than even the Ancients, long ago banished to the outer universe by the goddess Ubasti and her children, the sapient, wise but usually eccentric and poetry-crazed cats. Many Arcanics worship them and try to placate them with sacrifices, but in the words of the impossibly wise Professor Tam Tam (who does not appear as a character, but whose lectures are present as extra world-building information in the back of each issue, if you want to read them): "There is nothing divine about the Old Ones. They are horrors." And one is living inside her... and it is [[HorrorHunger ''hungry.'']]

Living in her body, underneath her skin, is a Monstra. Known as the "Old Gods," Monstra are ExactlyWhatItSaysOntheTin: terrible monsters, older than even the Ancients, long ago banished to the outer universe by the goddess Ubasti and her children, the sapient, wise but usually eccentric and poetry-crazed cats. Many Arcanics worship them and try to placate them with sacrifices, but in the words of the impossibly wise Professor Tam Tam (who does not appear as a character, but whose lectures are present as extra world-building information in the back of each issue, if you want to read them): "There is nothing divine about the Old Ones. They are horrors."

Living in her body, underneath her skin, is a Monstra. Known as the "Old Gods," Monstra are ExactlyWhatItSaysOntheTin: terrible monsters,

Enter TheProtagonist, an Arcanic teen named Maika Halfwolf. The only daughter of the formidable Moriko Halfwolf - known, respected and feared by both the Cumaea and the Arcanics - Maika grew up a starving, abused slave in human territory.