Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jem and the Holograms - All Media Types, Jem and the Holograms (Cartoon)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Carmen "Raya" Alonso & Kimber Benton & Jem | Jerrica Benton & Shana Elmsford & Aja Leith, Phyllis "Pizzazz" Gabor & Jem | Jerrica Benton
Characters: The Holograms (Jem and the Holograms), Jem | Jerrica Benton, Aja Leith, Shana Elmsford, Kimber Benton, Phyllis "Pizzazz" Gabor, Synergy (Jem and the Holograms)
Additional Tags: Past Jem | Jerrica Benton/Rio Pacheco, Dark, Mentioned Rio Pacheco, Jem Cartoon Continuity, Degrading Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dialogue Heavy, Leaving All Behind, Sad, One Shot, Wordcount: 100-500, Not Beta Read, POV Third Person, autistic author, Heartbreak, Villains
Summary:
after some lovely encouragement by @androgynous-barbie i’ve decided to write out my thoughts abt this! please take this post with a grain of salt as they are just my opinions and it’s been awhile since i’ve read dark jem.
i’m also gonna be using bullet points for this because it’s more thoughts than an in-depth anything, but also at some point i’ll try to do some sort of “review” of each arch/issue when i have the spoons to
lets start off with the pros and cons of the story
pros:
the ART AND DESIGNS, ofc it’s sophie behind the art wheel so i never doubted it’d be great. the design work of the dark holograms is probably some of the best in the entire series. silica is def tops in this too, she’s so ooey and gooey and creepy and intimidating i love her.
the idea of dark jem over all. it’s not your run of the mill mind control story, they’re not really mind controlled, they’re just gloomy emos. seems a bit silly but it’s really speaking “jem” to me since it involves music and a genre of music, that being goth.
i think the holograms being effected too was nice, seeing them all goth’d up. it was a drastic change from their regular selves.
pizzazz’s scene at home alone in the dark really was a shining moment in this arc, and a good show of exactly how lonely she is, and how bad her homelife is and how much the misfits mean to her.
the flashback part with the holograms parents, despite some issues, i genuinely enjoyed this scene, and just how... gentle and nostalgic it was. also the reveal of jacqui and emmett in such a nice scene was tops. the art also was really great in it too.
the build up (within the arc at least) was SO GOOD, i was really caught up in the story... at least up until 15 which leads me to...
cons:
the plot... ended up really becoming rushed during 15 to 16. 15 was pure just, text and explaining and it wasn’t at all integrated well into the story. i mean it was interesting to see and learn WHAT silicia’s powers were, but it wasn’t delivered the best. and 16 just became a “fix-it everything is fine” ending which didn’t seem at all tied to the story.
plot hole:
pizzazz’s sudden return somehow knowing EVERYTHING about what’s happened? and her voice is okay now? no or little explanation for it. this goes above with the “fix it” issue i had above.
how silica got the sickness in the first place. we didn’t see the sickness un-silica’d before or after, or anywhere silica could of had a backup band?
more nitpicky but how was silica able to project herself without the earrings or the machine? there’s a part where she’s projecting herself to one of the sickness members yet no explanation as to why or how.
silica looking like jem and nothing coming from that? not even anyone pointing it out?
eric/techrat KNOWING for a FACT it was the ai doing this, and then confronted the holograms, but nothing... came out of it? even though they knew the holograms had the ai.
the flashback bit with emmett “creating” silica? nothing is really answered about this?
the scope of the mind control is wide-spread, to the point it infected 5x5 yet this doesn’t come up at ALL in later issues.
the sickness as much as i loved their designs, ultimately proved pretty useless, more on this in my “better suggestions”.
as an issue with most of the comic i have, too many characters in both issues and arcs.
now, every story has its cons, and of course everyone has their own suggestions so here are mine! i’m gonna in “before, during, and after” format. with before being obv during the arc in previous issues, during the arc, then after in issues.
what could of been made better before the story of dark jem:
a much stronger foreshadowing storyline, from what i remember, the foreshadowing was in the annual in the form of coughing in the dreams by synergy and then in viral with the name being viral + techrat saying something is wrong with the ai. this, over all, didn’t... amount to too much haha so i’m gonna break down my suggestions for it.
for the coughing, i would have had that synergy was using silicia’s powers to like, weakly control people to like the holograms music and also be able to “enter” into the minds of the holograms? like silicia was able to do this albeit with more malice intent, and THIS could of triggered silica’s awakening/overtaking of synergy and techrat’s learning the ai is bugging out. which leads me to
like i said above, synergy using silica’s powers. synergy in both the show and comics (I assume) is amoral. she’s bound to whatever she’s ordered to do, since she’s an ai, a very advanced one, but still a computer. so her lightly drawing people in using a form of brainwashing to like the music of the holograms, isn’t that far off the mark and would have overall made for a stronger build up and interesting character.
what could of been made better during the story of dark jem:
oh boy here we go
let’s start off with a big one: the sickness. like i said above, i like the sickness, i like their designs but... i have 0 emotional investment in them as characters or any problems/danger they were placed in. they’re new characters, we were introduced to them AS mind-controlled pawns, so we don’t know what they are like before this so therefor shouldn’t care.
i’m biased i know but if the stingers were to be introduced at the end of this arc, they should of been the sickness. sure it would have been obvious (one male, three females band who else could it be), but then we as readers would have been emotionally invested in them and wanting to see them be free since we know them as characters.
if not the stingers THEM THE MISFITS! they were THERE already and easy pickings for silica. it could of even happened with kimber -> stormer and kimber could of blamed herself. and i think overall that would have made a much better conflict with eric, and pizzazz’s determination to save her band and team up with jem.
even the limp lizards would have been good..., i truly had a theory about that when dark jem first started.
the flashback with emmett and where silica “came from” is probably one of the weakest parts of the story over all because it doesn’t explain anything. emmett somehow made silica...? okay how? why couldn’t he of gotten rid of her? why was she “evil”? a lot of questions unanswered.
this could of been solved with making silica a sort of “synergy beta″, a prototype deal. and the original intent wasn’t meant to be malice, just have people be drawn in by music but it proved to be too powerful, but emmett couldn’t delete it and just made it core coding for synergy 2.0.
pizzazz’s sudden return was not really explained at all, or.. earned? i mean it just seemed like she was back to give it the story the “fix-it” ending.
i would honestly say she should of not shown back up, or not physically or something. like over the phone encouraging the misfits and have blaze lead the team-up.
overstuffed character roster.
have none of the boyfriends show up, because they didn’t contribute much outside rio being kissed by jem. and like i explained above change the sickness to previously established characters.
what could of been made better after the story of dark jem:
i adored the idea of jerrica being afraid of being jem again, that was real true consequences but then it was... dropped? and instead changed out for jerrica getting confused she was jem, which is ALSO something i really enjoyed but it really kinda ruined the impact of dark jem and silica’s control
i would suggest having jerrica still be terrified to be jem, and have her make synergy project jem in her place, and that be an issue when riot shows interest in “her”. then having to come to terms with being jem and being herself or something.
eric/techrat knowing the holograms had an ai and nothing came of it other than one scene. a huge waste, and even now nothing has come from this conflict.
i would suggest like, eric blackmailing the holograms over it post-dark jem, maybe something like making them leave 5x5 and they’re forced to start their own company (starlight music). honestly anything better than a dropped plotline
so.. ahaha done i guess! i didn’t proof read this much it’s just my brain spewing out thoughts, so if something is wonky/doesn’t make sense, that’s why! i also didn’t talk about blaze or her arc because it’s not my place to comment on her coming out, and also because blaze deserves her own post about her arc and character because i love her that much <3
i’m certain i missed stuff, or mis-remembered things, but like i said above it’s just some of my opinions and thoughts on how to improve an already good comic!
