"They found my body, but they never found me."
The backstory of Æon Flux is a lot more complicated than it first appears, but for the purposes of this review I'll sum it up (badly) in one paragraph: Æon is a Monican assassin fighting against a Bregnan government that wants to control the personal freedoms of every citizen within its walls. The walls provide protection but are also a kind of prison. In the eyes of the Bregnans, she's a terrorist. She fits the textbook description of that but in reality she's fighting to free slaves who don't know they're slaves, so that makes her something else, too.
There's an ecological message to the fore but it's less important than Æon's own story and of her role within the mysterious organisation. You'll get small glimpses of both those things, but to understand her true motivations and the deeper workings of the world in which she operates you'll need to watch the anime TV series. Doing so will enrich the story of the book. However, having watched it you'll then be in a position to compare the two and you'll see that the book is weak in comparison. That leaves you with a problem: watch the anime to more fully appreciate the book's setting and in so doing enjoy the book's actual story less. Like they say, the more you know…
It can be viewed as a prequel of sorts to the Hollywood movie starring Charlize Theron, but the character designs are more specifically designed to reflect Peter Chung's originals from the TV series. If you're not familiar with his style you'll maybe think that Timothy II's illustrations are bad. Some of the perspectives are arguably a little wonky, but the elongated limbs and odd facial expressions are purposeful. The costumes and the architecture are as they ought to be. So too is the odd sexual nature of the lithe Æon. There'll be people who dislike or outright hate the style, but that's true of every stylistic choice.
The book collects together the entire Æon Flux comic, issues 1-4.
2½ dionaea muscipulae out of 5
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