Super Mutant Magic Academy

A comic by Jillian Tamaki

So the Ignatz Award nominees were announced last week, and two comics from my reading list were on it: Witchy and O Human Star, both extremely deserving works by skilled (and queer!) authors. There was another comic nominated that I was less thrilled about – so much so that I felt the need to go out of my way to write a review of it. If that makes me petty, so be it; I’ve got an axe to grind with Super Mutant Magic Academy.

SMMA takes the action and adventure out of Hogwarts and X-Men and examines the idea of a fantasy school as if it were just like the shitty high school you went to. I love this idea, and for a long time I loved Super Mutant Magic Academy. The kid with laser powers uses them to vandalize the school; a depressed teen can’t even work up the will to make food with magic; the super-smart girl uses her enormous brain to better hate herself. It satirizes both genre fiction school and real life school by comparing them to each other, and this can at time be extremely incisive and funny.

What!!!
What!!!

But the trouble with satire is that it’s so easy to miss the mark. The relentless cynicism of SMMA wears on me now, and the comic has taken on an almost formulaic approach: five panels of one character philosophizing or arguing a point, then a final panel where they contradict themself. Every character is a hypocrite, and it’s frankly long since crossed the line from “uncomfortably close to your real high school experiences” to “painfully bitter and edgy”, which only the most pessimistic could call “realistic”.

Get it? Menstruation is gross after all.
Get it? Menstruation is gross after all.

Tamaki also uses jokes that mock legitimate issues of social justice, which is the other shoe I’m always waiting for when it comes to satire. When a character brilliantly shuts some asshole down, only to have the punchline be that they’re full of shit, it’s incredibly disheartening.

I think this is supposed to be funny.
I think this is supposed to be funny.

The worst is the (apparently only) queer character, Marsha, whose secret crush on her best friend Wendy is a running theme throughout the comic. Marsha is so repressed it hurts to read, and that repression results in her lashing out defensively at people, Wendy included. This wouldn’t even be so bad if Marsha weren’t also portrayed as a total creep, sneaking peeks up Wendy’s skirt and even stealing her goddamn hairbrush and sleeping with it.

Luv this queer representation.
Luv this queer representation.

“But Wisp, we all do/did awful things in high school that we later regret, it’s just realistic!” I dunno about you buddy but I managed to make it through high school without without stealing anyone’s hairbrush, and it just so happens that this sort of thing – secret, creepy, unwanted, obsessive romantic attention – is what homophobic straight girls expect from queer girls, and is a real and awful stereotype that they have to deal with. So, big ups to Super Mutant Magic Academy for encouraging that idea.

This one is really good!
This one is really good!

Do I think Tamaki’s work is irredeemable? No, if I did I’d give it an F. But I don’t think it deserves any awards for its clumsy satire or its harmful queer representation. There are many more deserving creators out there, and it’s frankly sad to see things like this get nominated while comics that are better both technically and emotionally get ignored.

Final verdict: If you’re a jaded asshole who thinks the worst of people, regardless of the oppressions they face, you’ll like this. If you like dry witty humor, there are a few gems in here if you’re willing to dig.

2 comments on “Super Mutant Magic Academy

  1. This is a very thoughtful review of a comic that I’ve seen shared around a lot and liked in bits and pieces, but felt a little uncomfortable with when I tried to read it all the way through. I think it has some really strong moments and some decent jokes, and I’m a big fan of Jillian Tamaki’s previous work, a lot of which I think dealt with LGBT issues and racism etc in strong yet subtle ways (Skim, for example, which told the story of an Asian teenage girl who falls in love with her teacher, a woman, in a really heartfelt and nuanced way), but ultimately the overall execution of SMMA doesn’t really do it for me either for a number of the reasons you mentioned. I feel like the strongest parts of SMMA also kind of stand on their own, as individual strips, even when separated from the larger context of the comic as a whole, which is an approach to storytelling in a strip format that I think works for the comic because it allows readers to take or leave certain parts more easily. I’m glad you reviewed this comic, thanks!

  2. I gotta say, I would have been a tad harsher with this comic, but I agree with Miss V. This review was well thought out and well said.

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