Kaijumax Season Four: Scaly is the New Black

Kaijumax: Season Four (Issue) #1-6

by Zander Cannon

"This is a poignant, modern critique of culture in an easily accessible and satirical package. Fans of brainy, incisive comics should look no further than Kaijumax." – BOOKLIST

The fourth volume of the critically acclaimed Kaijumax series by Zander Cannon, a socially conscious comic about monsters in & out of prison.

Scaly is the New Black as we timidly venture into KAIJUMAX's sister location and meet its terrifying residents. After murdering her abusive inmate boyfriend and unable to scale back down to human size, former prison physician Dr. Zhang joins a collection of uranium addicts, violent offenders, con artists, Lovecraftian horrors, and metaphors for human encroachment in the heretofore unseen female wing of Kaijumax. New and returning kaiju assimilate into their respective species, join gangs, and establish their various prison hustles while the underfunded and overextended 5-robot prison administration scrambles to keep them under control.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Crime, Science Fiction

152 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2019

About the author

Alexander Cannon is an American cartoonist, known for his work on books such as Top 10, Smax and Kaijumax.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth season of Kaijumax changes focus to a super max prison for female kaiju. It's not quite as funny as previous seasons. Cannon plays most of the drama straight up as this Old God monster mixes it up with a cult leader Bee (a throwback to Mothra) and her two human minions.

If you haven't read Kaijumax before you really should. It's a straight up prison drama with Kaiju and it's hilarious.

[Zedsdead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scaly is the New Black (heh) takes us to a new setting, the women's kaiju prison with a host of new characters, and several old ones to maintain continuity.

This is my fourth favorite of the first four volumes. The huge cliffhangers left dangling at the end of v3 go unaddressed; the new locale adds little to the already exquisite world-building; and the biggest new plotline, which pits a cultish religious leader against an apocalyptic Lovecraftian challenger, doesn't live up to the sky high standards set by the series.

That said, my criticism is relative and I'm looking forward to the next Kaijumax more than any other current title.

Plot points:
--Jeong is on his third job in four volumes, now working at Lady Kaijumax. He's still unable to de-Ultraman due to PTSD. He and Chisato are together and expecting.
--The staff is Voltron, headed by a woo woo warden who thinks inmates and guards can all get along as one big happy kumbaya community. This philosophy doesn't work.
--Her right hand is a sneering thug who thinks inmates should be abused into docile servility. This also doesn't work.
--Dr Zhang, freshly incarcerated for murdering her boyfriend Zonn, is adopted into a nice gang. She's stuck in Ultrawoman mode thanks to a suit malfunction.
--When Zhang's new gang discovers what she did to Zonn--who happens to be a gang member's baby daddy--they isolate and attack her. Electrogor's feared loner daughter Torgax intervenes.
--When Jeong refuses to smuggle in contraband for Vilestra, she sends a minion to murder pregnant Chisato. Chisato is injured but a Dinobot ambulance crew delivers her baby. Jeong fights through his panic attack to shrink down and help the medics.
--Mothra Queen Bee runs a cult that preaches the wisdom of the island and keeps its members in line by doling out addictive bee jelly.
--A Lovecraftian Old One called Goat takes over the cult with a black milk mind control substance. A riot (naturally) results.
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SECOND READ
Re-read as prep for Season Five.
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THIRD READ
Goat has a flashback before her dethroning that is hard to parse. I'm reasonably conversant in HPL but I get the feeling I'm missing a key story that would make it make sense.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as strong as the previous seasons but still fun

[Alex Sarll]

A prison drama, but with giant monsters; Kaijumax is the sort of series where, alluring as the elevator pitch is, you'd think it might start struggling once you get past the first miniseries. And yet somehow the ways it maps the one on to the other keep being so neat yet so audacious that it remains an absolute joy, even when it's also being incredibly grim. The hard-up guard (the guards are in giant mecha suits, obviously) being convinced to smuggle in smog for a little extra cash; the prison gangs based on background, except here it's the mythic monsters and the reptilians and so on. Even the people who get religion inside, and that one takes a particularly weird turn. As the title 'Scaly Is The New Black' suggests, this time we're on the women's monster island, whose warden wants to run a less violent and showy site than the men's facility – or at least to be able to tell herself that's what she's doing. Now, granted, in the case of elder gods and extraterrestrial behemoths, applying a gender binary to incarceration seems even more awkward than it does with humans, but part of the weird effectiveness of the whole project is that as ludicrous as it very clearly is, all the participants are still played as fundamentally people-y, so Cannon just about gets away with that (though at least a minor subplot refracting the plight of prisoners who feel like they're in the wrong institution would have seemed a natural fit for this volume). And there are a couple of other minor mis-steps, some of them with chicken legs; I don't entirely buy Baba Yaga and her hut as quite fitting the mood, which is unfortunate when she has a fairly significant role. But for the most part, the magic (and radioactivity, and implausible super-tech) still works, and I particularly enjoyed the inmates' thirsty discussion of one celebrity kaiju: "He can wreck my commercial district anytime".

[Jakub Kvíz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main storyline revolving around Electrogor takes a slight detour, and Season 4 focuses on the female wing of Kaijumax prison.

Along with a fresh cast of new characters, we get an update on Electrogor's daughter Torgax. Dr. Zhang, the Kaijumax resident doctor, also finds herself on the other side of the prison bars after the events of Season 3.

The good old Jeong is also back and working his new job in the female wing to provide for his pregnant girlfriend. Still unable (or unwilling) to switch off his Ultraman form due to his PTSD.

I couldn't really appreciate the storyline with Queen Bee and Goat as I am not very familiar with Mothra nor Lovecraftian mythology, which is obvious inspiration here.

[Willie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The switch to the female prison is a very interesting change of pace. I feel it truly helped the story.

[Luke Shea · Rating 5 out of 5]

How is this this good

[Bill Coffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The concept is as simple as it is brilliant: What if Monster Island from Godzilla was really a supermax prison, complete with all of the indignities and injustices of a real prison? We're talking drug use, gangs, shankings, inmate sexual assault, corrupt guards, and a prison-industrial complex that ensures people of a certain kind go right to jail and never really get a chance to get out. Such is Kaijumax, Zander Cannon's masterful take on crime, punishment, justice, freedom, personal demons and the world we wish that was and the world we know that is.

Kaijumax is uniformly excellent. Do not be fooled by Cannon's technicolor cartoonistry; this is a narrative that is as compelling and as bleak as the come. It is supremely well done, but it is often an unpleasant read. Not because Cannon drops the ball, but because Cannon nails so perfectly the grimmest truths about life behind bars that we all know, but have the luxury to look past. This is a world where there is true evil that deserves punishment, and decent people who are ground up by an uncaring and corrupt machine. But throughout it all are characters we care about, turns we believe in, and a series where, even though we might sometimes want to hide our eyes, we demand to know how it all ends.

Kaijumax is not for kids. But it is required reading. Nowhere else will you get such a terrific blend of character study, social commentary, brilliant wordplay, meta-commentary on the kaiju genre, and more. Stomp directly to Tokyo and grab a shipping container of this one, mon. You'll be glad you did.

[teohjitkhiam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This aptly titled 4th season of Kaijumax focuses on the all-female wing of the kaiju penitentiary. As the cover to the paperback suggests, the most interesting character development is Dr. Zhang, the former doctor cum warden of the all-male wing of the prison, herself convicted for the murder of her former abusive kaiju boyfriend cum inmate, last seen in Season 3. Monstrous they may be, but the verbalized lingo & social ties forged by the Ultraman-parody wardens & their kaiju inmates far resembles & reflects contemporary human society. Season 4 doesn't disappoint -new readers should begin their Kaijumax journey from the Season 1 or be lost- although the humor seems less apparent & drama dialed up a notch as compared to the previous three seasons. #Goodreads

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creative and entertaining, as the other seasons!

[Lucas Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it’s good to visit a new location, this feels like breather volume after the high tension and huge body count of the last one, and as a result, loses a lot of momentum.

[Darnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I was done with this series, but switching over to the womens' prison was a breath of fresh air.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 62/101 for 2024. Been a while since I returned to this series but it's still really good. Such a fascinating blend of goofy over-the-top kaiju sci-fi and socially conscious human drama.