This was an okay read. The verbiage, at times, was a bit too Gen Z, and took away from the story for me. I do think kids will find this to be a fun and easy read.

Thanks for the ARC, Netgalley!

Really liked this book. It was fast-paced, a good story with a twist of fantasy. I really liked the drawings, they fitted the story well! I look forward to read more of it.

I didn´t like this book very much. From the childish Gen-Z writing style to the Main character repeating on every page that she is now travelling throuh dimensions with her alternative selfs. Also the aspect with the dimension where the Nazis won WWII?? Didn´t like that.

Plot:
Like real siblings, Brother Havoc and Sister Fortune are in a never ending battle. That is until Sister Fortune is shattered into shards and spread across different universes. Now the shards, all alternate versions of Carrie, join together to create a Rebellion and bring back Sister Fortune. While this is a battle between Rebellion and those who follow Brother Havoc, it was interesting to see Carrie sway on both sides. The novel just moves incredibly fast, which I love, but it would probably do better with more pages.
Just as a head’s up, there is a plot line where we are in an alternative world where Nazi’s won. It makes sense in a multi-universe, but it’s still there.
The romances were pretty rushed and undeserving. Carrie’s love interest spends more time with someone else, which, if in the future does have a bigger role, then I’d be more interested. I don’t know why a certain femme fatal gets emotional after meeting a Fred from Mystery Inc knockoff.

Characters:
Carrie - The “original” was probably the least interesting as she is more interested in dating and wanting a normal life.
Then we have characters like TR-8 (Trait), Fortitude (Twin sister of Patience), and Ada. Not sure how I feel about them because while they are interesting, it felt like their loyalty kept shifting.
Lady C and Tempest – A combat killer pair who is best described as Loki and Sylvie… if you know what I mean.

Art:
Art was pretty good, but nearly every panel had a speech bubble with a bold letter word that didn’t need to be emphasized. Just way too many bold words.


Overall: Thank you to #NetGalley and Oni Press in exchange for an honest review. 3.75/5 Graphic Novel was approximately 130 pages.

‘Army of One’ is a sci-fi comic and it was good, I found it interesting and the art was good

Rating 4 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Army of One was a solid first entry to this story.
While this was a bit heavy on the dialogue/text for me to consider this fast-paced (for a YA graphic novel), I appreciate that this volume had a lot of grunt work to do in setting up the worlds and the story. A what a story it was!
I enjoyed the characters, and the complexity that was given to the shard characters. It was interesting to see glimpses of their lives in the alternate worlds, and how their worlds shaped them. The creators also manage to go pretty into the horrors of espionage and war, and how ethics often go out the window in situations where you think you’re fighting for the greater good.
There was one minor plot point I was uncomfortable with, and that was where the father of one shards didn’t seem to care about serving the Nazi’s until his daughter was directly affected by the cruelty of there regime. I know it echos the real world, where many people don’t care about the suffering of an entire group, and I don’t think the creators meant anything by the addition of this. In truth, without further reflection on my part, it would have merely been a touching moment of a father saving his daughter, doing anything for her. I do wish that we could have seen the father truly come face to face with what he had done, condemning his action, or in some cases, his inaction. And perhaps we will in future books.,
Overall, I think this was a soild first entry. The characters were easily relatable and interesting. The main character is compelling and has a funny inner dialouge. There is great potential to build this intp a truly epic graphic novel series.
I would recommend this book to anyone who loves Into the Spiderverse, V.E. Schwab, or Tamsyn Muir.
Spider-man for the shattered worlds and character variants. Who doesn’t want to know what their other selves are up to.
V.E. Schwab for the character design and dialouge moments. It reads a lot like her YA stuff in terms of humour and dynamics.
Tamsyn Muir for the sci-fi, body hoping, doppelgänger schenanigans. Or I suppose, like that one movie with Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise I watched on an airplane years and years ago.

Could one girl be the key to uniting a world split by an ages-old prophecy spurred by Brother Havoc and Sister Fortune?

The art was good but the writing was a little juvenile. I liked it but I didn't love it.

** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE **
Copy received through Netgalley

~

Army of One, by Tony Lee, Yishan Li, Bryan Valenze
★★★★☆
128 Pages
Themes: Sci-Fi, Adventure, Chosen One, FF Romance, Multiverse
Triggers: assault, violence, kidnap, homophobia, Nazis, mentions of the Cuban Missile crisis


Army of One is an intriguing story wrapped up in gritty but well-done artwork to make a truly interesting graphic novel. It manages to tackle a lot of issues and a fairly well-expanded and well-explored storyline within one volume.

The main plot is about Cassie, a high school student, whose live is suddenly turned upside down. In one day, she experiences instinctive fight skills, the world freezes around her, she sees a person who isn't there, and her high school principal is killed by the Stranger Men, a group of zombie-esque creatures. Suddenly, Cassie is 'rescued' by a group of women who not only look like her, but claim to be her, from various alternative universes.

While that plot could be cheesy, it's really well done. I liked the way the multiverse was explained, the prologue that helped pull it all together, and the fact that we never lost sight of the important plot points. We spend the whole volume not knowing who to trust. We have an unreliable narrator – or rather, two of them, since Brother Havoc and Sister Fortune are both unreliable – and follow a flawed MC who hasn't got the first clue why she's the Chosen One.

The complex plot weaves in multiple versions of Cassie – thankfully all with different names and appearances, so that we can visually keep track of them. But, they also all have their own personalities. Since we visited Ada's world in this book, I imagine we might end up visiting all the alternative worlds throughout the rest of the series?

The volume does end on an almost-cliffhanger, but it's one that fits the story that was told throughout. I'd definitely read the next volume or chapter, and continue the story.

~

Downsides?
I felt the Stranger Men concept was weird and cheesy, with the characters themselves looking like they were the Silence, dragged from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Every time they popped up, it felt like a weird excuse to give the characters a reason to leave the scene.
It took me a little while to become truly engaged with the plot. While I found it interesting from the beginning, it took about a third of the volume for me to become truly invested in what was happening to Cassie.
The trip into an alternative world where the Nazi's won WWII was quite interesting, especially the way it was portrayed, however it all felt a little too “obviously pro-Nazi”. I'm not sure that if they had won WWII, their rule would be quite as totalitarian as it was shown in the comic. This is especially true since the story claims they've been in power for 60 years. I'd imagine that a Nazi-run world or country would look much like Russia rather than North Korea. I mean, the first panel in this world literally contains SIX swastikas, three arm-salutes and two Nazi flags (the eagle and swastika together). Then, just in case you missed that this was Nazi territory, the second panel reinforces that with ANOTHER three swastikas and two more flags symbol (the eagle and swastika). It's a little overkill.

I enjoyed this story from the start. Carrie is a cool and reliable character. The story starts quickly, and the universe is cool and well-constructed. Nothing is all black or white, and, just like Carrie, we're just trying to figure out which side we're supposed to be on. What bothered me was the fact that there were too many plotlines. We easily get lost within all the subplots, which is sad because the main intrigue was the most interesting.

This had a lot of promise and I was interested in the beginning, but then it became too much and disorganized. The art was fun and I liked the alternate Carries, but I became bored and distracted.

I enjoyed this graphic novel, and I loved how I was able to connect with Carrie even though I don't know what it's like to wake up one day and find out you're a clone of a sorcerer from another universe, which was my favourite aspect of the whole story. But I am also a lesbian and know what it is like to be in high school and feel different from my peers. I can't even imagine finding out you are a clone and that your parents were murdered because of this. I definitely am looking forward to the next volume because I need to know the solution to that cliffhanger.

This has really cool concept and characters. I would be interesting in the future volumes. Some of the subplots were tied up really abruptly, but a solid start of what I hope is a good series.

𝙄 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣 𝘼𝙍𝘾 𝙫𝙞𝙖 𝙉𝙚𝙩𝙂𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙚𝙭𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙣 𝙝𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬

⟡

I thought this was okay, it was fun at times and reminded me of Orphan Black mixed with Marvel which I love! I really liked the worldbuilding and the characters are cool. The plot is interesting and I like the illustrations.

Unfortunately it did fall a bit flat for me, there was a lot of info dumping for such a short graphic novel and the plot was almost too fast paced and jumped around a lot, it felt unfocused. The dialogue felt stilted and the romance felt really out of place and a bit forced.

I think if the maybe the minor sex references were removed this would be way better geared towards a younger audience because it has a lot of potential!

Thank you NetGalley and Oni Press for providing me with this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This was so awesome!! The cover, the illustrations, the girlpower, the epic fantasy, the amazing characters,.. I could go on and on!

Carrie is just a normal teenager or at least she thinks she is, until her life gets flipped upside down! She literally just goes to math class when time stops, creepy strange bloodthirsty men appear and a kick-ass group of women wo are alternate hers, show up to help her! These women have guts, interesting powers and take her on the most insane adventure and maybe even save the world eventually! There’s morally grey characters, alternate worlds, a true love story, revelation after revelation and you honestly feel like you’re in an action/sci-fi movie until the end. This was impossible to put down and there’s clearly a lot left to cover in volume two, which I need right now!

The graphics in Army of One are excellent and the story of the war raging between Brother Havoc vs Sister Fortune was a great look at good vs evil, though who decides which is which.

Carrie is a regular teen until she begins to be hunted by people who look like her.. and people who want to kill her. Is she the key to stopping a new war?

This was a fun read, with an interesting plot and exciting ending. I’ll be picking up the next.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this in advance in exchange for an honest review.

This graphic novel drew me in with its cast of very cool characters. It was fast-paced and mostly kept me engaged until the vey end.
Despite the fact that it’s a short read, I felt the main characters were the strongest point of the book, they have very different personalities and complement each other well. The plot itself didn’t always flow very well, and the different subplots were sometimes a bit frustrating to follow, making it hard to connect with some secondary characters because we didn’t have enough time to get to know them.
It felt like a very YA graphic novel, almost marvel-esque with the multiverse that we explore alongside Cassie.
I am not sure I would continue with the second book, but the art style might push me to take a look at it.

A thousand years ago, a mighty battle pitted two of the greatest sorcerers against each other: Brother Havoc and Sister Fortune. "Army of One" offers an original take on the concept of the multiverse and the hero’s journey. Despite its exploration of the multiverse, the focus is less on the worlds themselves and more on the loneliness experienced by a character surrounded by others. It delves into how even one person can spark a revolution. It's well-written and well-drawn, and the pacing is just right.

Though I enjoyed the plot line and I think the summary had really good potential, I think this book suffered from a lack of flow in the storytelling. Don't get me wrong, this graphic novel was really good and I think future volumes are going to be really good, but this first one was just kinda meh for me? This might be a me thing, or

The series starts out very quickly, making me think that I missed a prologue or something beforehand. You don't really spend a lot of time with the characters before they're thrust into the plot of the story, making it difficult to really relate to the characters that are there. Hopefully in future volumes, the pacing problem is fixed to make the volume more sensible.

That ending tho...

Decided to change it up and read a graphic novel.

I really enjoyed the premise and loved the art style.

But I did find the beginning a lot, there was a lot of information thrown at you, and I did find it a bit confusing.

Throughout there was a lot touching on the concept that good vs bad can really come down to perspective, or at least comes down to how much information you have to make an informed decision.

All in all I really enjoyed the read and I do look forward to seeing where the story goes.

This wasn't too bad. I actually would've liked it a bit more if there weren't so many subplots running loose. And the way those subplots tied up by the end of the story felt very abrupt and very last minute.

I really liked the idea of this story because it features some of my favorite tropes: multiverse, chosen one, morally grey villains, hidden powers, etc. Combined together, they created a decent story that felt very teen Marvel, so there's definitely an audience for this. I'm not sure if I'll continue on because it was very tropey and predictable. There weren't really any surprising twists or questionable character choices that compels me to read the second volume.

Also, the ending gave me major Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong vibes. Even though this is a very YA graphic novel, there's a big ethical question there that's definitely being overlooked.

Thank you to Oni Press and NetGalley for this arc.