Angels And Magpies

Love and Rockets

by Jaime Hernández

The sublime, the superpowered, and the senior citizen converge in Angels and Magpies, which collects the Gods and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls and Love Bunglers storylines from the Love and Rockets: New Stories series, as well as Hernandez’s 2006 serial for the New York Times. In the latter, Maggie pays a visit to Queen Rena, who is living out her twilight days on an island after a lifetime as a wrestler and an adventuress. In the Ti-Girls segment, superheroics get a screwball spin when Angel of Tarzana and Maggie square off against Dark Penny Century. In the "Love Bunglers," held as perhaps Hernandez’s greatest masterpiece in his thirty-five-year career, and one of the great graphic novels of all time (it was hailed by Slate and Publishers Weekly as one of the best stories of the year), the past and present converge as Maggie and Ray’s reunion is threatened by long-buried family secrets.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Sequential Art, Queer, Comix

260 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Jaime and his brother Gilbert Hernández mostly publish their separate storylines together in Love And Rockets and are often referred to as 'Los Bros Hernandez'.

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume 12 of the Love and Rockets collection from Los Bros--as brothers Jaime and Gilbert are sometimes called-- collects work from Jaime that I had read in earlier publications, the terrific Love Bunglers, and Ti Girls.

Vignettes from Love and Rockets New Stories, Vol 1 and 2, Jaime's story of the Ti-Girls was first published as a solo book in 2012, and from the initial 100 or so pages, adds some 30 new pages, covers, and in this large format you get to see the great art of a person at the top of his artistic game. With the hunger for rich and complex depictions of women in superhero comics, this is a kind of relief, and done with a sense of humor. The story is about girls in the Maggie-Hopey L & R universe, girls who read comics all the time and then suddenly (oh, like you never fantasized about this!) get into a girl superhero “gang.” The focus in Ti-Girls is on three gangs/groups, dozens of women, who mostly fight women, a girl power story with sass and raucous humor, in a wannabe parallel universe. This has a lot of energy and fun. Zany! Mad-cap! Girl power! This piece explores in a light-hearted way the Los Bros love of pulpy comics. Silly and sweet. I would not start here if you have never read Jaime’s stuff, though. This is the B-side, the lighter, sillier side of Jaime.

The Love Bunglers was published in 2014 as a separate book, and is the series single, one of the greatest Maggie stories ever here. Maggie is a central character in Jaime’s Locas stories, and has been for 3 decades. Perla Luisa “Maggie” Chascarillo debuted in 1982, going through a transformation from young punk mechanic to middle-aged landlord. I might also add she has a refreshing body type for comics.

This story features her in a kind of culminating (for now) story weaving various elements of her life, with a particular focus on her struggles with relationships with two men with whom she has been involved in the past: Ray Dominguez and Reno Banks. Masterful storytelling. Still, if you are in the least interested in Jaime’s work, don’t begin here. Maybe start with the Mechanics stuff. Maybe this last heartwarming tale is about being able to wait for what you love.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Angels and Magpies collects the Locas stories from The New York Times Sunday magazine, Love and Rockets Volume 2 #20, and Love and Rockets: New Stories #1-4.

This was one of my purchases during the Fantagraphics Fantabucks sale a couple months ago. It's the last of the Locas collections in this format, although the Locas stories continue.

Anyway, this one is a rollercoaster. Maggie meets up with Rena Titanon, a dark episode from Maggie's family's past comes back to haunt her and Ray, we find out what's really going on with Maggie's super heroine neighbor, and Angel goes off to college.

The stories vary in tone and subject matter, from the Silver Age super hero homage of God and Science to the dark and disturbing event in The Love Bunglers to what goes down with Ray and Maggie near the end of the book.

It's amazing how much Maggie, Hopey, and Ray have come since the first book, aging and changing like real people instead of remaining static for decades. Jaime Hernandez's art continues to get more refined. It's a shame more people don't know about him since he's never done a super hero book, although God and Science proved he definitely could.

Angels and Magpies is another great Love and Rockets collection. Five out of five stars.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the past few years, I've slowly been making my way through the Love and Rockets collections, but I've still yet to dive deeply into the older collections-- the majority of my reading has taken place in more recent Locas pantheon. This means that I don't have a lot of knowledge on the history and background of each character-- but I think this has allowed me to really enjoy Jaime's storytelling talent.

Magpies and Angels features female wrestlers, a lot of superheroes, and a very simple but devastating story of family trauma. I enjoyed Jaime's range from the lengthy, bombastic (but very fun) fight scenes with Latinx superheroes, but also how he portrayed Maggie's coming of age to her attempts at making things work in her middle age. Such a rich, beautiful story that is very Californian & Latinx in its origins.

[Jesús · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful work from one of the medium’s masters.

While I prefer the younger, rasher version of Maggie to her middle-aged, more contemplative self, I nevertheless love the characters of Love and Rockets at their best, worst, and everything in-between. Angels and Magpies is some of all three.

This collection gives readers a taste of the full spectrum of Jaime Hernández’s Locas stories, from his sci-fi superhero send-ups to his slice-of-life melodrama. It begins with a mash-up of two very different comics—a Peanuts-style tale of a very young Maggie and a story of Maggie revisiting her time in Latin America. The collection also includes two longer, also dissimilar, stories of Maggie during her time as an apartment manager. In the first, her college-age roommate Angel joins a team of misfit Latina superheroes. In the second, Maggie reconnects with her on-again-off-again beau and with her lifelong calling as a mechanic.

At this point in his career, Jaime Hernández makes this stuff look easy. He can draw faces and write character better than anyone in the business. That he’s been doing so flawlessly now for almost 40 years puts him among a very elite few (including his brother Gilbert). A heartbreaking joy to read.

[Jake Nap · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love and Rockets is a series that commonly gets tossed into the conversation of best comics of all time. All this hype of course made me excited to dive in, but it also inflated my expectations to be nearly impossible to top. While reading through the first volume, I enjoyed it but it didn’t quite click with me in the way I wanted it to. The second volume pulled me right in and the third made me fall in love. It’s these last 3 volumes however that have cemented it as one of my favorites, and it’s this volume that puts it firmly top 3.

The character work in Jaime’s stories is bar none the best in the whole medium. These are characters that you grow with, characters you love and characters you understand as real people. Jaime’s cast of characters is fully three dimensional to a point where when they mess up you don’t consider it an inconsistency, you remember what it’s like to be human.

The Love Bunglers was so overwhelmingly incredible I had to put the book down after certain chapters. It’s so in line with what I love about comics. Jaime has formal sensibilities that match my own tastes more than any other cartoonist. The stories in the Love Bunglers often end abruptly and have moments of intense violence sprinkled throughout. While these moments do seem to come out of nowhere, the power of the drama between characters still takes center stage. In about 100 pages Jaime introduces a character and more or less gives you their whole history cohesively and reunites two characters who have been apart for far too long. We knew a story of Maggie and Ray was coming for years and when it comes, it comes at the perfect moment.

[Dean Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just loved this so much.
This was a gift from the author, so wonderful to see this collection as a whole.

[Vincent Mollica]

❤️

[CHAD HADEN · Rating 5 out of 5]

That last panel had me in tears, what a beautiful coda

[Linda 😊 Tam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joyful, and heartbreaking

[Alex E · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume really has it all, from the bombastic Superhero story, to the more quiet - and more devastating - interpersonal relationship story.

To be honest, I probably would've given this actual volume more of a 4 but I gave it 5 for the overall "Locas" series. Because it was just so damn good at times. It took me a long time to give Love and Rockets a shot, because I've always been more of a Marvel/DC/Image reader. Underground comics, as they were known at one time, were always on the periphery. And when I was younger, I was more into action and adventure. But I'm very glad I decided to give it a shot because now I think so fondly on the characters of these stories - especially Maggie and Hopey, and think about them pretty often nowadays.

So it was bitter sweet to start this final volume. I was a little annoyed at first when the Superhero story went on so long. And it's not that it's bad, in fact, its pretty entertaining and fun. It's probably one of the more bombastic stories that Xamie has written, and it's something that I think is a love letter to the medium. It feels like that to me at least. The story is crazy and weird, fun and action packed, exciting and heartfelt all at once and it seems to me that Xamie wanted to do this type of story one last time so he indulged himself (and us) with this cool tale.

But then we get to what I was really waiting for. What's gonna happen with Maggie? And where the hell has Hopey been??? And while there isn't too much Hopey, especially because she only comes out for a bit, it's enough to give us what we need to put the pieces together as to what path she ultimately took. She's more settled down, but still fiery inside. I always thought Maggie and Hopey would end up together, but this series has a tendency to mimic life, and have it not turn out the way you expect. Ultimately, they're friends through it all, and that relationship is bigger and more important to them than anything else, in my opinion.

The real story is what happens with Maggie, and to a larger extent - Ray. Maggie has been someone who has always been very independent and run at her own pace. She doesn't really look back too much, and so, she tends to leave things behind - like family. We see in this story, that her little brother is one of those things left behind. And it really comes around full swing (literally) towards the end. With her relationship with Ray re-establishing, the future and the past clash violently towards an unsure conclusion. I don't want to spoil anything, but the ending is hopeful and bittersweet as it should be.

I know there are new adventures of Love and Rockets, and I will get there eventually, but for now, it was awesome reading this series and reading its original ending.

I'm going to read Gilbert Hernandez' Love and Rocket's books next, and I am excited to find out what he does on his side of the road. But if I'm being honest, he has a lot to live up to.

[Shoshanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this part of Love and Rockets. TBH, I actually did not read the first half, the Ti Girls part. I just don't really care for that kind of superhero narrative, but luckily it didn't really effect the rest of the story.

The rest of the book is "The Love Bunglers." It's just what I have come to expect from later (more current) Love and Rockets. I can't believe I used to think the earlier punk days would be more interesting! Long crushes, long missed opportunities, memories of childhood and punkhood. We continue to learn more and more about Maggie's life, and you can see why people in these stories are the way they are.

Just so much love and so much sorrow and just... it's so beautiful and heart wrenching and so everyday.

I'm going to jump the gun and read the next two Jaime Hernandez graphic novels (which is what I imagine they'll put into the next "volume") and I think that will bring me up to date!

I'm just going to say again, I really recommend this series so much!

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know a comic's great when you buy it twice.

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two words: Love, and Bunglers. The storytelling is so good.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jamie masterfully gives his spin on superheroes and midlife romance.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Love Bunglers is quite possibly the best Maggie story ever told, tying together events from her entire life in an emotional, heartwarming tale of love.

[Mandel]

Volume 6 of the collected Locas stories by Jaime Hernandez was, in one sense, a mixed bag for me. But this is only because the long "God and Science" storyline just didn't work for me. The rest of it, focusing on Maggie and (to a much lesser extent) Hopey in their early to mid 40s contained some of the absolute best storytelling Jaime has ever produced.

I suppose my main gripe with "God and Science" was that it was a long detour away from the main storyline. I get what Jaime was going for: a full-on return to the early days of Love and Rockets, in which he created a unique sort of magical realism by drawing on early to mid 20th century pulp scifi and comics. And, I admire his portrayal of two rival female superhero teams. It was as if he was imagining an alternative history version of Silver Age comics in which women were the superheroes, and in particular women of a sort that basically never show up in superhero narratives: not big-breasted sex dolls in spandex, but rather middle aged Latinas, powerful butch women, women who struggle with the everyday problems that women have even as they don costumes to fight intergalactic threats. However, for me, "God and Science" ended up being a very disappointing end to the story of Penny Century, largely because Penny Century and the people who care about her most - Maggie, Hopey, and the gang - played only bit parts in the story.

Still, this era of the Locas stories is still excellent for the stories that come before and after "God and Science". In the opening story, Maggie goes to visit Rena Titañon, who in her old age has moved to a remote island to live in seclusion. Despite being 40, Maggie is still something of a f*ck-up. Or, perhaps it's better to say that being with Rena, who has always been a kind of surrogate mother for her, causes her to regress a bit into her teenage persona in the way many people regress when spending time with their parents. Eager to get off the island to go drinking in town, Maggie accidentally reveals Rena's whereabouts to the world at large, and we get a window onto what Rena means to Latin Americans. As was true of many popular poets and musicians in 20th century Latin America, Rena is a symbol of political liberation to millions, and it's gratifying to see her celebrated in her old age at the end of this story.

But the real highlights of this volume are the stories about Maggie that comprise the rest of the volume after "God and Science". The narrative jumps back and forth between the 2000s and the 1970s. In the 2000s, Hopey has a long-term partner with whom she's considering having a child, Maggie is still managing an apartment complex in the San Fernando Valley, and Ray Dominguez comes back into her life. Ray is in his mid-4os and seems to have finally developed from a man-child into a full-fledged adult. He's still on-and-off with Vivian, who has given up stripping but is still a hot mess. In their own ways, both Ray and Vivian pine after Maggie, and now, after so many years, Maggie and Ray renew their friendship, Maggie knowing all along that Ray is still deeply in love with her. In the 1970s storyline, we get a great deal of backstory about Maggie's childhood: how her parents marriage ended; how she ended up becoming a mechanic as a teenager; her childhood friendship with Letty and its tragic end; and most of all, the heart-wrenching story of her little brother Calvin, a young boy who is brutally molested by an older kid.

By the end of the volume, the 1970s and 2000s storylines converge, and when they do, it's clear that this era of Locas represents, not only one of the high watermarks of this decades-long story, but one of the high watermarks of the comics medium, period. I was choking back tears several times while reading this, and was reminded of how terribly stupid it is that so much of the world ignores comics because they assume it's all Marvel and DC superhero garbage. Jaime Hernandez is truly one of the finest storytellers out there, and Locas is one of the finest long-form stories that American culture has produced.

[Rick Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Continuing the Jaime Hernandez Locas stories from Esperanza, we are treated to some continued excellence here. In fact, this stretch of Jaime's career might as well just be considered his peak since there is not a single miss. Angels and Magpies collects Jaime's stories from Love and Rockets: New Stories between 2008-2011 along with a strip that was published in the New York Times entitled "La Maggie, La Loca".

The two big features here are Gods and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls, an inventive, dynamic and lavishly drawn superhero story featuring the Locas cast. It's a fun deviation away from the naturalistic version that Jaime settled on since the early days with stories like "100 Rooms", but Jaime isn't just switching things up for the sake of it. In what easily could be played off as a lampooning of his own characters, Jaime instead delivers a brilliantly staged sci-fi opera that further explores the characters of Maggie, Angel, Penny and others. It's stylish and slick for sure, but the magic behind this story is only fully unlocked for those who've kept up with Locas characters and storylines up to this point.

The second half of this volume is The Love Bunglars, my personal favorite Jaime Hernandez story and the best that Love and Rockets has to offer. I do plan on reviewing it to greater detail one day soon, so I won't comment on it much here, but if there's any reason to pick up this volume, it's for this story. This graphic novel is an achievement for Jaime simply because it delivers on over two decades of character development for Maggie and the supporting cast, in ways that are highly tragic and emotional.

Angels and Magpies is an exhibition of a truly stunning achievement by one of the greatest cartoonists of all time.

[Hamish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two brief shorts, then two long ones (Return of the Ti-Girls and the Love Bunglers). The worst and best of Jaime's work.

Sigh, Return of the Ti-Girls. On paper, I love the idea of Jaime doing a silver age superhero homage. And certainly it looks terrific (he draws the shit out of all of that crazy stuff), but he’s not a superhero writer and it shows. He has no idea how to plot this kind of thing, and ends up committing all the worst sins of silver (and to some extent bronze) age superhero comics, with a needlessly complicated, confusing plot and a contrived, over-expository climax. I usually recommend people skip this one when reading L&R, as it’s not relevant to the overall plot anyway.

And then we have the Love Bunglers. It’s my favorite L&R story. This was at least my third (probably fourth) time reading it and I legit sobbed. It almost feels like the end of the series, a perfect resolution and capstone to the series, that also expands on and enriches everything that came before.

I had the realization that Maggie might be the most perfectly rendered fictional character I’ve ever encountered. Her characterization isn’t just in the broad strokes, it’s in these little things that most writers just don’t think to show in their characters. And it all fits together. The more Maggie’s backstory gets filled in, the clearer it becomes why someone with her specific set of life experiences thinks and behaves in the way that she does. Typically, the showier the psychology in a novel is, the worse the psychology is. Writers like Zola or Paul Bowles spend half their time explaining why each character is doing exactly what they’re doing, which usually just demonstrate what a poor understanding they have of the human mind. But Jaime Hernandez? That shit is uncanny. He understands so perfectly why people are the way they are, and he demonstrates that understanding almost exclusively in subtle details. Dude is a genius.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

The New York Times stories are a lot of fun, because they feel like Jaime's classic L&R, but told with a more modern sensibility and maturity. They're also amazing dense.

I didn't like the Ti-Girls story. It was totally OK, and gave depth to the superhero stories that have occasionally intersected with the rest of L&R. But without much investment in these characters, I just couldn't love it.

The Love Bunglers story that ends things is terrific. It's great to see what feels like a finale for our main characters, and a very mature one, but the twists and turns in the last few episodes are shocking. Pretty great also for insights into the past of Maggie and her brother. These views into the past have always been amazing treasures in the L&R narrative.

[Al McCarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d already read this before as the graphic novels God & Science and Love Bunglers. Only thing new was the first story from the NYT Mag. Put together, it’s remarkable. The Ti-Girls story is sheer weird fantastical cosmic fun that still connects to Jaime’s earliest tales. Love Bunglers is so much more. Amazing how, thirty years after, Jaime has so many stories to tell about the life of Perla, Margarita, Magpie, Maggot, etcetera…this is powerful stuff. Jaime Hernandez remains one of comics’ greatest talents.

[Spraffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ti Girls superhero stuff which comprised the 1st half of the book isn't really my bag although the artwork is top notch. Much prefer the character driven 'Love Bunglers' of the 2nd half. If you've read and enjoyed the earlier stuff then there's lots of poignant, emotional reveals and payoffs. 5 stars for the Love Bunglers but the Ti Girls brings it down to a 3.

[Mateen Mahboubi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read Love Bunglers before and it's fantastic (although a tough read) so it was nice to revisit. The first quick stories are good too but I'll admit that I just couldn't get into Ti-Girls. While I appreciate the need addressed of low representation of strong fem characters in super hero comics it didn't work for me.

[Greg Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually first read The Love Bunglers for college six (?!) years ago but I really did not get the full scope at the time. I did cry tbh

(four stars because I am not really as seriously into the NYT Magazine comic strips/very lengthy Ti-Girls story this edition also collects)

[Michael Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a unique experience in graphic novels for me to see the characters to continue to unfold (see Alan Moore) and watch decisions of one generation affect those in their futures. Refreshing.

[Max Goodin · Rating 4 out of 5]

the superhero section was a bit hard to get through, but it's still the same great character work after. it's interesting to see the cast push past 40 and get more modern technology

[Brad Yowell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not ready for it to end.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Love Bunglers half is wonderful and sweet, but the Ti-Girls half was not for me

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is the only time a comic book has ever made me cry
I’ve fallen so hard for this series and it’s frankly disgusting how good it is

[Hari Rao · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, I’m not embarrassed to admit the last panel made me cry.

[Sergio Otaegui · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect