‘Scott Pilgrim Takes Off’ Answers a Burning Question: Does Scott Suck?

Nearly 20 years ago, Bryan Lee O’Malley unwittingly started a revolution.

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, the first volume in what would become a six-volume comic book series, introduced a version of the world many of us recognized but had never seen articulated: one where the gamers and indie rock-loving losers were, well, not totally the losers. A fluency in Nintendo history was, if not celebrated, judged a valid skill. It was fully plausible that someone with no apparent muscle mass could use his puzzle game-primed cunning to outwit—and ultimately out-fight—a Hollywood action hero.

For as specifically, wonderfully nerdy as Scott Pilgrim was, it was Scott Pilgrim himself who best defined the series’ idiosyncratic appeal. There was a lot to both like about him and see within him that reminded us of ourselves: He was charmingly goofy; he was a romantic; he managed to show growth and maturity by the end of his arc. He casually dropped Sonic the Hedgehog factoids while playing his PSP Go, a handheld game console owned by maybe 40 people total. He wore a vintage Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt. He was named after an obscure song by an even more obscure band, which is exactly the kind of thing an internet-lurking, literary-minded, somewhat (okay, very) unpopular high school geek would do with their own fictional characters.

Read more at The Daily Beast.