Chew, Vol. 11: The Last Suppers

Chew

by John Layman, Rob Guillory (Illustrator)

Tony Chu, the cibopathic federal agent with the ability to get psychic impressions from what he eats, is getting closer to finding the answers he’s been looking for—answers about the bird flu that killed millions, answers about the conspiracy to keep people from discovering the truth. And the only thing standing in Tony’s way is Mason Savoy, fellow cibopath, ex-mentor—and unrepentant murderer!
Presenting the second-to-last storyline of the New York Times Best Selling, Harvey and multiple Eisner Award-winner series about cops, crooks, cooks, cannibals, and clairvoyants. Collects issues #51-55, plus the sold-out, out-of-print blockbuster crossover CHEW/REVIVAL.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Comic Book

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 2016

About the author

John Steele Layman is an American comic book writer and letterer. Layman is most known for writing Chew, published by Image Comics.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

man, so here we are again - all caught up on chew with no more chew to look forward to for a while. however, since the next book will be the LAST book, i may go full-nerd and buy the comics as they come out individually instead of waiting (im)patiently for the collected graphic novel. which is a financially irresponsible thing for someone with money woes to do, since i will still have to buy the graphic novel for completion's sake, but kanye didn't get where he is today by making cautious and sensible decisions. from now on, i live my life WWKD-style. which is convenient, since we share an initial, if not a tax bracket.

so, chew #11.

things are happening.
so many things.

weird things



silly things



culinary things



urinary things (maybe a spoiler for something that happened in #9, but out of context, in this series, who can even say what is going on? i will be thoughtful nonetheless)



platypus things



and spoilery things (specific to this volume)



but of course, my favorite things are all the angry tony things. man, he is such a sullen cranky teenager around savoy.



come on, tony - forgive and forget! what's one ear devoured between friends? you don't see will graham sulking through paris! florence, maybe, but not paris!!



anyway, tony's angry. again. still.



i have loved watching the relationship between these two change over the series, and - more to the point - i have loved getting the background scoop on savoy's motives. he's got some plans this time that are going to change everything.



i was unprepared.

this is the portal to spoilertown, so enter at your own risk:



THAT IS NOT WHAT THE SHIPPERS MEANT!!

only one more adventure to go. (or five, if you're in kanye mode)

ALSO - one very fun & frustrating thing about this book is that it includes the chew half of the chew/revival crossover/switcheroo, which is weirdly and fortuitously the only other comic series i read. so while i love seeing the revival characters basically looking like funko versions of themselves:





and the one panel of tony chu in revival mode looking like he's just some dude on the subway (and barely angry),



i do not like being teased! fortunately, despite my money woes, i can afford the two bucks or whatever that this crossover thingie costs, and then i can start tracking down all the poyo adventures and read those to get my chew fix until - snif - the end.

in closing, you gotta love a series cheeky enough to use assessments like this one in their back-cover blurbs:



that's all i have!!



come to my blog!

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

By Chew Volume 10 I’d gotten fed up with the series because John Layman was more concerned with spinning his wheels than getting on with the story he’d set up way back when. Now that the series is over, I can finish out the final two volumes without any delays in between. I went into Volume 11: Last Suppers, not expecting much and that’s pretty much what I got!

The good news is Layman is getting the fuck on with things finally. We’re no closer to understanding the fire skywriting (come ON!) but we’re inching closer to the reveal of what went on with the lethal avian flu. Tony grudgingly teams up with Mason who shows him some strange things as well as his tragic backstory.

It’s amazing to me though that this is the penultimate book and Layman’s still filling it up with extraneous nonsense. The EGG terrorists and the Divinity of the Immaculate Ova continue to do one-dimensional bad guy stuff, Toni’s giving us a tour of Heaven for no reason, Olive’s doing some throwaway government work, there are more stupid foodie powers introduced (FFS, enough already!), and Chu and Colby investigate some inconsequential cases. There’s also a crap Chew/Revival crossover included.

Maybe Chew is an example of a writer losing interest in the story he originally set up but is contractually obligated to complete? It’s still very frustrating as a once big fan of the title. Rob Guillory’s art is always awesome and the Tony/Mason storyline was good, but too much of this volume felt like needless padding.

Oh well, only one more volume to go at least! It’s disappointing that I’m not more excited about it but this title’s quality has really gone downhill these last few books, and Last Suppers is only slightly better than the previous, worst volume of the series.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title has lost a bit of its direction in this volume. Maybe because John Layman is writing a few titles a month now. But it's still a fun series even when a third of it is gags. The series jumps ahead a couple of years as we head to the end of the series. (There's one more volume planned.) The main focus of this volume is a showdown with Mason Savoy as the questions about the bird flu epidemic begin to be answered. I think my favorite issue was a stand alone story featuring Olive during the White House Easter egg hunt.

[Jedi JC Daquis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got to be honest. This is my least favorite Chew volume. And I'm afraid that the last volume will pick up whatever theme or pacing volume ten has (please don't). That's a problem with ending a spectacular story arc with an awesome buildup towards the climax. The previous installment, Chew Volume 10 was so awesome John Layman couldn't follow it up with another one. It is, I believe the climax of the whole series.

The problem of Last Suppers is that there is too much pompous Savoy monologue in it. I get it already. He speaks that way. So please, let us wrap this all up, can we? There's also this unnecessary sidetrip Savoy and Chu took and I don't know what they really did there except for revealing to us that chicken humanoids have existed in our world eons ago and they would have been the alpha hunters in the food chain if they weren't wiped out like the dinosaurs.

Chew volume 11 is a significant downgrade to what the series has consistently been throughout all of its issues. It is less funny, less frenetic, less crazy.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Penultimate. One more to the glorious (overdue) end!

In the past I noticed that when I ran across the more ridiculous scenes in a Chew trade, I found myself either laughing spontaneously or putting myself in a mood where I was ready to smile at the absurd. That's this series' primary appeal for me, and I didn't want to miss maximizing my enjoyment.

Somehow though, when I found the scene in which Tony's daughter is swinging a jello battle-axe, I just powered through.



Notable revelations:
- new jobs for D-Bear, Olive
- Backstory on why Mason Savoy is so obsessed with exposing the bird flu conspiracy
- Prehistoric origins of the sky writing threat

The latter is where I'm most interested - as if Guillory is ready to wrap this super-stretched storyline up soon, and plots like he still means it.

We've all been bitching for a few books now how languid the pace of the story got in the middle of the run - going in circles plot-wise, giving us no real momentum, lots of poyo diversions and pointless new food freaks (with no impact to the overall story).

It seemed like the creators committed (to someone - themselves? Image? Family members?) to a sixty-issue run [like Aaron's Scalped, or Vaughan's Y] that would be epic in scope, but hadn't worked out what they'd do with a third of the run in the middle.


[Ironic they'd include this throwaway line...]

It's really too bad because if they'd chopped out some of the fluff, and kept at the madcap pace they'd started with, fans would be eating this shit up.

I'm one of those guys who like to support the fun books, and I've committed to seeing this through to the end, but it's sometimes been a chore. (Like trying to keep a Windows computer free of viruses, or never wearing the same clothes two days in a row. Who's got time for these inevitable failures, man?)

Death death and ... more death to come I'm sure. Good. Or bad. I don't know for sure, but let's just get this finished.

Four stars - I'm being generous, and it's because the damned ante got raised with some measurable emotion attached.

[Kayla Charisse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have I mentioned how much I love this series enough? There's only one more volume left after this, and based on the events of this installment, it's going to destroy me. I'm not ready.

[Lashaan Balasingam · Rating 4 out of 5]

As per usual, the story arc gets all twisty and quirky, giving us a bit of world-building thanks to an unpredictable dose of time traveling (and not the usual kind). Savoy gets a lot of page time here as the story builds up to a grand reveal that sets up the final story arc.

[Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

We've officially hit the bottom of the barrel with CHEW. Volume 11 is the one that wastes the most pages with so-called 'gags' that, frankly, I find insulting as a long-time follower of the series. It's almost as if John Layman had just a few more ideas and plot items to check off, but not enough to fill the remaining 10 issues of the series, so he stretches it out and pads it with ridiculous stopgaps. Oh - wait: we learn that persimmon is to Mason Savoy what beets are to Tony Chu. And - spoiler alert - Mason Savoy hangs himself. Cue cliffhanger. Yawn. At this point I'm like, 'whatever'. That's too bad: the series really started off well. The good news is that the next volume is also the last one.

This volume collects issues #51-55 and part of the CHEW/Revival crossover, which was inconsequential (about as much as what the main CHEW series has become).

[Andrew✌️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Penultimate volume of the series. Like the previous, besides to providing additional pieces for the solution of the mystery of bird flu, the story is spotted with funny, humorous and sometimes scandalous situations.

The story takes place a couple of years after the conclusion of the previous one. To introduce us to the story, there is none other than Antonelle Chew, live (if you can say so) from heaven, with an amusing sketch.

The central figure of this issue is Savoy, busy looking for Chew's collaboration, as well as pass him all that he has discovered, often with unorthodox but also fascinating methods For example with a trip through prehistory thanks to a “Victulocusire”: dine in his presence transport you to a geographic location based on the nationality of the food you’re eating. And if you’re eating old food, he can transport you where the food originated. A sort of time travel! . And it will not be easy.

I believe this volume re-evaluates Savoy. It’s true that in order to discover all about the bird flu he proved himself capable of everything, but he is an incredible character, decisive and even funny in certain attitudes, like his talkative way of expressing himself that often makes Chew angry (a frequent mood in our hero).

As in other issues, there are flashbacks of past operations, or future with images of cases that Olive will work in the following years often absurd.
There are some twists that made me jump out of my chair or knock me down in despair, but it's a great volume. The ending of the story is sad, but now we are launched towards the last chapter.

The covers are always fantastic and the number 53 is my favorite Chew and Savoy like Fred and Barney from "The Flintstones" animated series

5 stars, as always!!

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hermann Anari is a Victulocusire. Dine in his presence and he's able to transport you to the geographic location based on the nationality of the food you’re eating, and time! Quite a clever volume by Layman & Guillory, with a major character killed in the future at the end of the last volume, and this one, starting 2 years later!

OK I'm a’ gonna be a pain... but Tony Wu... there's no substance to his character, Savoy and even Colby have more depth. It's a good series, but deeper more detailed characterisations would have made this book unsurpassed? 8 out of 12.

[alittlelifeofmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is honestly the best volume of this series since the first one. But that cliffhanger!! I know there's rumours this will only be 12 volumes so I need to know how this ends asap.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fitting end for a certain character.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION
On 21 Nov 2016 i
- read a large % of Ottaviani & Myrick's fine graphic biography, Feynman
- received in the mail Chew vol 11 ("The Last Suppers," aka issues 51-55) as well as Derek Parfit's massive 2-volume treatise on ethics, On What Matters
- saw the new movie The Arrival in the theater
- watched "Bang Bang Shoot Chute," the latest episode of the Sherlock Holmes tv show Elementary, and
- watched the 1995 movie The Last Supper, which had been on our DVR for a short while.

On 22 Nov, i
- finished reading Feynman
- read all of Chew vol 11
- began reading vol 1 of the mega-popular comic series Saga
- lazed in bed for about an hour imagining i could write an essay on ethics relating all these works, and
- started writing (ie, worked on a somewhat more elaborate review than usual)

If you're willing to risk some spoilers, you can tell me whether i bit off more than i could chew.

This is no great essay on ethics. Just wanted to share some thoughts on themes that repeatedly annoy me.

The Last Supper (aka, the movie) is the story of 5 graduate school students who, every Sunday, host a guest for dinner+debate. Shortly after broaching the oft-asked hypothetical, "If you could, would you kill Hitler before he rose to power and did anything evil?" one of the hosts "accidentally" murders an unvetted guest who has proven to be unrepentantly hate-filled. The self-professed liberals decide that from now on their guests will always be vocal advocates of the types of conservative ideas deemed most heinous by the hosts and, if a guest's mind cannot be changed, the guest will be served a poisoned glass of wine.

On Elementary (aka, the tv show), a harried and pregnant wife sabotages her thrill-seeking husband's parachutes. We discover via interviews that she "tried everything" to get him to abort his final (fatal) base jump. By this, she means she asked him in person, she texted him, she phoned him, and she left voicemail.

In Chew's "The Last Suppers" (aka, the comic book), writer Layman gives Mason Savoy several pages worth of soliloquies on the topic of why he did horrible things in his Quest for The Truth about the avian flu epidemic that killed >100 million people, including his wife.

Of these three, the movie's issues seem the most complex. The characters don't address the main implied feature of the hypothetical question, namely whether you (now) travel back in time, knowing what you know (now) about Hitler. Furthermore, when they debate how to proceed after the inaugural "accidental" murder, they fail to discuss the key point in their net-positive murder plans, namely what crime/s must their guest be proven guilty of to warrant a death sentence.

In the tv show, the wife apparently is more afraid of confessing her sins than she is afraid of her husband dying.

At the end of the comic book, Savoy claims to finally have all the knowledge that he ever wanted, to know what he needs to do and what Tony Chu (main character, former partner, and now-long-time adversary) needs to do. But Savoy fails to share key information with Chu that Savoy believes would've convinced Chu to bury the hatchet while Savoy also claims to've made it "extraordinarily difficult" for Chu to learn what Savoy now knows.

Why?!

I do not understand why the creators decided that their characters would willfully and/or irresponsibly choose to avoid the truth or hide the truth. Perhaps the movie's dark-comedic or merely ironic conclusion was supposed to drive home the naivete of these wannabe do-gooders. Perhaps the tv show's writers believe that's a plausible motive for an average person to commit murder. Perhaps the comic book … well, i really can't think of a reason for either of Savoy's failures to do what's right.

Of the three, the comic book depresses me the most even though i still enjoy the series enough and probably will seek out the last 5 individual issues before the 12th and final single-volume book is published.

[Licha · Rating 3 out of 5]

--Two years later into the story, Olive is now training to be and FDA agent.

--Tony is still refusing to forgive Savoy or work with him.

--We get a glimpse of Savoy's past and his quest to find out about the avian flu that killed his wife.

--Savoy makes the ultimate sacrifice and hangs himself so that Tony will be forced into eating him in order to absorb Savoy's knowledge.

[Melania 🍒 · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,75/5

[Himanshu Karmacharya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the series is beginning to get formulaic at this point, The Last Suppers offers enough twist and turns to keep the volume fresh.

3.5/5 stars.

[Hilary "Fox" · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only one more Chew after this one and the story will be over... Already the air of finality hangs about this issue. Things are wrapping up, characters are dying, the writing in the sky has been translated and just how deep the conspiracy of the avian flu lie goes is becoming known. I devoured this issue in a single sitting, as I have most of the volumes, and it's with dread I stare down the final book and consider just how much I want to know the conclusion.

After this it's over, right? I mean, after this I guess I can finally start Saga... but I don't want it to end.

Tony Chu is a cibopath, meaning he gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. If he eats an apple he knows when and where it was planted, what pesticides were used, who grew it, etc. If he eats a person, well... You get the idea. He's one of three remaining cibopaths, the other two being his daughter and Mason Savoy. There are very few cibopaths throughout history, mainly being because inevitably things end with one killing and eating the other, absorbing all they know and can do... and, well, Agent Chu is still refusing to ever work with Savoy...

My love affair with this series only continues. The art is as wonderful as ever, complete with a "Bro, do you even read?" poster outside of a bookstore that I kind of want in my life now. The story is at once funny, compelling, and heartbreaking in turns. This is an emotional rollercoaster that I'm still not entirely prepared to be on, but far too invested in to get off.

Also, yeah, I caved and bought the final TPB instead of waiting for my library to get it in. I'm weak and need it in my life.

Thanks, Karen.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't resist this series and they just go by so fast! Some great gags in this one and we get a few interesting reveals - I can't wait to see how it all wraps up in the final volume. Plus, I definitely want to try Revival by Tim Seeley after checking out that bonus flipbook at the end - it was so weird seeing Tony in that style!

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't sure where the series was going to go after the end of the previous volume. I am also really glad that I had volume 12 ready to go as soon as I finished this one. I have become so invested in the characters and I am eagerly anticipating (and fearing?) the end of the series.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fine.

[Ginger · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Peter Derk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still great, but what's with this crossover nonsense? We've got Chew and then Revival, two different series, and for some reason they did a crossover story?

I didn't really get it. It's not like Revival and Chew have similar tones or art styles or anything.

I mean, if your restaurant serves great burgers and wants to get in on serving great desserts, feel free to give me a taster version of the dessert with my burger, but let's not slap whipped cream onto a burger, eh?

[Barbara McEwen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars - holy where is the storyline?

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

This continues to be one of the best series I have ever read. It's all building to what I can only guess will be a fantastic finish.

Oh, and the Chew/Revival crossover included provided me with more humorous sexual exploits of Agent Colby.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Culinary catastrophes and hilarious badass FDA action abound. This volume manages to continue to screw crazily with the story arcs while keeping it all somehow coherent. So. Much. FUN! Will be sad when this is all over.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

More tense and even weirder with every issue, Chew is a brilliant concept and one of my favourite graphic novel series.
Although i am very worried about how it will end.
Mainly because i can only see it ending badly!

[Book lover · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just love Chew, it's funny, entertaining and addictive! This volume just as previous ones- was great, THAT ending though! I want next volume RIGHT NOW!

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

by far one of the weaker volumes. :( not ready to say good-bye with the next!

[RG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Losing steam with the story but still pretty good. Hopefully will be wrapped up nicely.

[Rituraj Kashyap · Rating 3 out of 5]

The glory days of the series seem to be over, and it is just dragging itself towards the finish.