Scott Pilgrim is a graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. It consists of six digest size black-and-white volumes, released between August 2004 and July 2010, by Portland-based independent comic book publisher Oni Press. The series is about 23-year-old Canadian Scott Pilgrim, a slacker and part-time musician who lives in Toronto and plays bass guitar in the band Sex Bob-omb. He falls in love with American delivery girl Ramona Flowers, but must defeat her seven evil exes in order to date her.
A film adaptation of the series entitled Scott Pilgrim vs. the World starring actor Michael Cera in the title role was released in August 2010. A videogame of the same name developed by Ubisoft for Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade was released the same month. I would like to note that since th
...ere are six graphic novels, it would take forever to write my own summary for every novel. So I am using the summaries from Wikipedia, which I have read over, and are very if not 100% accurate (I would know because I have read all of the graphic novels myself)
The series begins by introducing Scott Pilgrim, a 23-year-old Canadian slacker living in Toronto with his gay roommate Wallace Wells. He plays bass for a band called Sex Bob-omb, along with his friends Stephen Stills (guitar/vocals) and Kim Pine (drums). He begins dating a Chinese high-schooler named Knives Chau. Kim has a negative view on the relationship, but Scott ignores her view saying the relationship is platonic One night, Scott has a dream about a girl rollerblading who he has never met before. He later see’s her in real life handing
package to the library. She show’s up repeatedly in his dreams, and a not so accidental meeting at a party thrown by Stephen's not-so girlfriend Julie Powers, gets him to become obsessed with finding out more about her. He finds out that she is Ramona Flowers, a girl who works for Amazon.ca and has recently come to Toronto from
New York after a rumored messy break-up with someone named Gideon. Scott orders CDs on Amazon as a pretense to meet her again, and receives an email from someone named Matthew Patel warning him about an upcoming battle, but Scott pays it little heed and promptly deletes it. After another dream about Ramona, in which she is carrying his package, Scott wakes to find her at his door. She explains that she uses subspace portals as part of her job to cross long distances in seconds; one such route passes through Scott's brain, hence his dreams. Having convinced her he is not a strange person after their previous encounters, they spend the evening together and go back to her house during a heavy snowstorm, kiss, and spend the night together.
The next day, Wallace informs Scott that he needs to break up with Knives if he plans to pursue a serious relationship with Ramona, but when he meets Knives later in preparation for a band gig, Scott is unable to bring himself to break up with her. He also receives a letter from Matthew, which he again disregards. At the venue, Sex Bob-omb prepares to begin their set when Matthew Patel descends upon the stage and engages Scott in a video game-style duel. He reveals himself as one
of Ramona's evil ex-boyfriends, and has mystical powers that allow him to summon "demon hipster chicks." Scott defeats him in a musical battle, his final attack obliterating Matthew and leaving behind a handful of coins. On the subway home, Scott and Ramona decide to become a couple, on the proviso that Scott agree to defeat her six other evil-exes. When Scott asks if Gideon is one of them, Ramona's head glows sharply.
Vs. The World opens with a flashback to Scott Pilgrim as a transfer student to St. Joel's Catholic High School in Northern Ontario, seven years before the series begins. After getting into a short fight moments upon enrolling, Scott meets Lisa Miller who immediately befriends him. Scott and Lisa attempt to start a band, only to realize that they are missing a drummer. Meanwhile, Scott meets Kim in his geography class, noticing her ability to play drums. Lisa and Scott scheme to ask Kim to join the band, but when Scott shows up to school the following Monday, he finds out that Kim has been kidnapped by students from the rival Benvie Tech High School. Scott defeats the students and Kim's kidnapper, Simon Lee, and rescues Kim. Kim joins Scott and Lisa's band Sonic & Knuckles, and dates Scott up until they break up when he tells her he has to move to Toronto.
In the present, Scott and Wallace ride the bus together, and Wallace tells him that actor and professional skateboarder Lucas Lee, Ramona's second evil ex-boyfriend, is filming a new movie in Toronto. Wallace also pressures him to break up with Knives. Scott goes to meet Knives and awkwardly breaks it off,
but is cheered by thoughts of Ramona who spends the night with him while he watches several of Lucas Lee's films to "train". The next day, Scott shows up at the video store Kim works at to rent several of Lucas Lee's films to prepare for his next battle. While his friends make dinner, Knives spots Scott with Ramona. Scott goes to meet Lucas at his filming location, Casa Loma.
Lucas immediately beats Scott up, after which they take a lunch break and Lucas tells Scott about how Ramona broke his heart, and how there is a "League of Ramona's Evil Ex-Boyfriends" who have organized themselves to come after Scott. Scott then defeats Lucas by goading him into skateboarding down a dangerous set of rails, where he ends up going too fast and bursting into coins upon landing. Infuriated with Ramona allegedly stealing Scott from her, Knives gives herself a hipster makeover by dyeing her forelock and attacks Ramona at the Toronto Reference Library. After a short battle and various insults, Knives confirm’s that Scott was cheating on her by dating Ramona simultaneously and takes off. Meanwhile, Scott gets a call from Envy Adams, Scott's ex-girlfriend, who asks him to open for her band The Clash at Demonhead that weekend. Speaking with Envy reopens Scott's unresolved issues about their breakup and he becomes a mess. Nevertheless, Sex-Bob-omb show up to see Envy's band on Friday, only to discover that Knives is now dating Young Neil, Stephen Stills's roommate. The book ends with an epic opening by The Clash at Demonhead, where Ramona identifies the band's bassist as her third evil ex-boyfriend, Todd Ingram.
The Infinite Sadness continues
the night that The Clash at Demonhead performs. After the venue clears out, Envy invites Scott, Ramona, Kim Pine, Stephen, Julie, Knives, and Young Neil backstage with them to "chat". Knives who idolizes Envy, blurts out that she also dated Scott, and has the highlights punched out of her hair by The Clash at Demonhead's drummer, Lynette Guycott. Knives is humiliated and leaves with Young Neil. Disgusted by Envy's new personality, Scott blames Todd for changing her and tries to attack him, but is stopped by Todd's psychic 'vegan' powers. The story then unfolds with a series of flashbacks detailing the relationship between Scott and Envy, then known as Natalie V. Adams, a mousy girl who gradually bloomed into a confident, musical talent, finally adopting the name "Envy".
She broke up with Scott once their band started to get noticed, and Scott's devastation resulted in him and Wallace becoming friends. The next day, Scott and Todd engage in an unsuccessful challenge at Honest Ed's department store, where neither comes out the winner. They agree to fight again the following night. Ramona convinces Scott to ditch the challenge and they return to Ramona's apartment. After an unsuccessful make-out session, Ramona begins to fill Scott in about her relationship with Todd. In a flashback to their college years, Todd proves his love to Ramona by using his newly-gained vegan powers to blow a crater in the moon. Meanwhile, Todd is secretly cheating on his vegan diet (by eating gelato) as well as cheating on Envy with Lynette.
Later, that evening, before opening for Envy's band, Ramona and Envy get into an argument and begin to fight, Ramona armed with
a giant mallet. As Envy starts to get the upper hand, Knives attacks her for the sake of Scott's happiness. Before Sex Bob-omb can perform, Scott sees Envy about to kill Ramona and Knives, and jumps from the stage to hit her "weak point"—the back of her knees. Envy then discovers Todd cheating on her with Lynette, but after confronting him, Todd unapologetically strikes her with his powers, shocking everyone. Todd and Scott then proceed to have a bass battle, and Scott is aided by the powers of The Crash and the Boys (the opening band for the evening). Todd almost wins the battle until the Vegan Police show up and strip him of his powers for violating his vegan diet, Scott headbutts the powerless Todd, who is reduced to a pile of coins, and receives an extra life in the process.
Finally, Sex Bob-omb gets to play and Scott spots a strange character (Gideon) from the stage. The volume ends with Envy moving back home After a summer break at The Beaches for Julie's birthday, Kim moves into an apartment with her friends, Holly and Joseph. Stephen notices Joseph has a home recording studio, and asks him to help Sex Bob-omb record an album. As Scott goes to the Dufferin Mall to escape a heat wave, he sees Lisa Miller, later re-acquainting her with Kim and introducing her to Ramona and the others. Meanwhile, at Knives's house, Knives and her friend Tamara notice that the picture of Scott on Knives's shrine is mysteriously slashed. Annoyed with running into his daft subspace dreams in the middle of the day, Ramona recommends that Scott get a job.
Kim brings him to
The Happy Avocado, a vegetarian restaurant where Stephen works, where he gets a job as a dishwasher. Shortly afterward, Scott and Kim are attacked by a samurai, who slices a streetcar in half and chases them until they escape via a subspace portal. The next day, Scott and Wallace venture to the financial district to meet with their landlord, Peter, who tells them that they must re-sign the lease or leave by August 27. Wallace recommends that Scott move in with Ramona. As Scott contemplates this, he briefly encounters a female "half-ninja", who unsuccessfully attacks him and disappears. The following afternoon, Scott spots the same girl talking to Ramona at the restaurant where he works. She is revealed to be Roxie Richter, Ramona's fourth evil ex. Not keen on fighting girls or people with swords, Scott hides in Ramona's bag while she heads into a subspace portal and fights Roxie. After nearly killing Ramona, Roxie leaves.
Afterward, Ramona tells Scott that he can move in with her temporarily. Later on, though, things go downhill when Ramona suspects Scott might be attracted to Lisa and kicks him out. After walking in on Wallace having sex with someone in their apartment and being informed that he was fired from his job during the fight, Scott goes to Lisa's house to spend the night. Lisa recalls their high school friendship, asking whether Scott had any feelings for her then and if they should have an affair now. After waking up from a dream infiltrated by Roxie in an attempt to kill him, Scott cannot remember the previous night, but learns from Lisa that nothing happened between
them and that he confessed that he loved Ramona.
Scott gets his job back and goes to the Second Cup, where he finds Knives working there. He is suddenly attacked by the samurai, revealed to be Knives's father who was not keen on Knives dating a white boy. Scott escapes via another subspace portal and ends up in Ramona's mind, where she is a slave to a shadowy figure. Ramona kicks Scott out of her head, telling him to forget what he saw, but before he can explain his true feelings, he sees that Roxie spent the night at Ramona's and his head begins to glow. Ramona tells him to walk it off and as he does, Scott encounters his dark self and rejects it, rushing back to Ramona to find her being attacked by Mr. Chau. Scott lures him away and gets him to fight against Roxie.
When Scott realizes that he has been cowardly, he plucks up the courage to confess his love for Ramona, earning the Power of Love sword, which emerges from his chest. Scott uses this to defeat Roxie, Ninja Gaiden-style, who warns him about "the twins" before dying. Scott then apologizes to Mr. Chau, who leaves having earned respect for Scott, before Scott finally moves in with Ramona. After the group gives Lisa a farewell meal, Ramona finally tells Scott her age, which is 24.
After Scott turns 24, the gang attends a Day of the Dead-themed party thrown by Julie where Ramona spots her next two evil ex-boyfriends, the twins Kyle and Ken Katayanagi. Scott approaches them and prepares to fight, but instead is forced to fight their robot, Robot-01. He
defeats the robot and "wins the party." Meanwhile, Knives talks to Stephen, who has permanently broken up with Julie and who reiterates that Scott cheated on her with Ramona. She wonders if Ramona knows about it. November continues to show the deteriorating status of Scott and Ramona's relationship, with Ramona starting to appear bored and Scott stumbling onto signs that she may still be interested in Gideon. She at one point tells Scott that she doesn't like his band, which hasn't done any gigs since they started "recording," which distresses Scott (even Wallace doesn't like his band) and leaves him unable to sleep. Later, Sex Bob-omb prepares for a show at Sneaky Dee's, even though they haven't rehearsed in months due to Stephen's persistent but fruitless recording with Joseph.
Their performance, which was doomed to fail anyway, is interrupted by another one of the twins' robots, which Scott defeats, breaking his bass in the process. During this time, Ramona encounters Knives in the bathroom, who tells her that Scott cheated on them at the same time. On the way home, Scott admits that he forgot his keys and Ramona refuses to let him in for the night. He ends up staying with Wallace, who has since moved in with his boyfriend Mobile, and Wallace gives him photos he has found of Gideon Graves, all of which are blurry or indistinct. After spending the next night at Kim's, he arranges a setup so that he can casually bump into Kim and Ramona while they get coffee. During the conversation, Kim brings attention to Ramona's head glowing, of which she herself was unaware, although it disappears before she
can see for herself. They later all attend another of Julie's parties that night where Scott is forced to fight yet another robot.
Kim approaches Ramona on the balcony, and takes a picture with her camera phone of Ramona's head, which is yet again glowing. Kim and Ramona proceed to get drunk, and after defeating the robot, Scott joins them. Later, Kim takes the subway home, but is kidnapped by the twins. After some initial intimacy, Ramona confronts Scott about cheating on Knives with her and tells him he is just another evil ex-boyfriend waiting to happen, which worries Scott into thinking they might break up. Whilst Ramona takes a shower in the early morning, Scott receives word of Kim's kidnapping, and rushes to a construction site to face the twins, despite being disadvantaged due to his hangover. During the fight, the twins explain that Ramona cheated on both of them at the same time, and imply Scott is fighting for the wrong girl.
As he begins to lose the fight, Kim lies and says that Ramona text messaged her to give Scott the encouragement to defeat the twins simultaneously. Scott rushes back to the apartment. Ramona, now with her hair cut and dyed again, tells Scott that she is a bad person and that she "had a good time." Her head begins to glow brighter and brighter until she disappears. Scott tries to look for her, but instead lets her cat out and locks himself out of her apartment. Over the next few days, Scott bed-hops while trying to get Ramona's cat to come back and constantly mistaking people for Gideon. Kim moves back home to
the north, accepting Scott's apology for his behavior. After moving into a new apartment, Scott reads a note Ramona left behind addressed to Gideon, telling him she would not come back to him. While Scott wonders what this means, he receives a call from Gideon, asking when it would be convenient to die.
Four months after Ramona's disappearance, Scott has been wasting his life playing video games, to the chagrin of his friends. At a party, he is shocked to learn that Knives will be leaving for college soon, and later runs into Envy, who is beginning to promote her much anticipated solo album. Later talking over coffee, Envy expresses concern for Scott and points out their breakup was a result of an argument which Scott apparently started, though he cannot remember. Gideon, who is revealed to be dating Envy, appears during their conversation, but Scott ends up fleeing. In order to reinvigorate Scott to confront Gideon, Wallace sends him on a "wilderness sabbatical" to Kim's home up north.
During this time, Scott tries to rekindle his relationship with Kim, but is rejected when Kim points out errors in his memory surrounding their breakup. Scott began dating Kim after beating up Simon Lee, a wimpy kid who was dating her at the time, not a suave villain as Scott remembered. Likewise, Kim only learned that Scott would be leaving for Toronto from Lisa—Scott never told her in person that they would have to break up. Upon this revelation, Scott's head start to glow and the NegaScott emerges. Scott becomes determined to defeat him so he can forget his relationship with Ramona and move on, but Kim reminds
him he cannot keep running away from his mistakes. During the fight, Scott remembers Ramona and merges with NegaScott, fully remembering and accepting responsibility for his poor actions in his previous relationships, after receiving one last good luck kiss from Kim, Scott heads back to Toronto to earn Ramona back.
Scott arrives at the newly-opened club, the Chaos Theatre, owned by Gideon, where Envy is making her solo debut. As Envy starts her performance, Gideon attacks Scott, who is enraged to learn that Ramona is not with him. When Scott refuses to join the League of Evil Exes, Gideon steals his Power of Love sword and kills him with it. Scott awakens in a desert, where he encounters Ramona, who apologizes and attempts to explain why she left. They reconcile, but Ramona reminds Scott that he is dead. However, he returns to life thanks to the extra life he obtained from Todd Ingram, and Ramona bursts out of his chest to confront Gideon. Gideon reveals several cryogenic capsules inside the club filled with former girlfriends, wanting Ramona to join them (despite that Gideon kept pushing her away during their time, a fact which he can't remember, either). He fights them and explains that he formed the league following a drunken post on Craigslist after his breakup with Ramona. Ramona tries to use the glow to escape into subspace, but Gideon stabs her. He explains that glow is an emotional weapon which seals people inside their own heads, consumed by self-loathing.
After learning from Ramona that Gideon literally has a way of getting inside her head, Scott jumps into Ramona's subspace bag and arrives in her head, where
he finds and confronts Gideon. Scott's actions encourage Ramona to fully overcome his influence and oust him from her head. Ramona retrieves the Power of Love sword, healing her wounds, but breaks her bag. When Scott sees Gideon snap at Envy, he comes to understand him and earns the Power of Understanding sword. As they fight him, Gideon reveals he had been watching the two via the subspace highway in Scott's head, altering some of his memories in the process. Whilst Gideon tries to turn Scott and Ramona against one another, they defeat him, causing him to explode into $7,777,777 in coins. Scott and Envy reach closure and Gideon's former girlfriends are unfrozen (and they have no idea of what just happened).
Ramona reveals that her disappearance was merely an unsuccessful wilderness sabbatical to find herself while at her dad's cabin. She decides to give her relationship with Scott another shot. In the closing pages, Scott is working with Stephen as co-chef, Stephen reveals that he is gay and in a relationship with Joseph, Scott and Kim start an awful new band, and Knives heads off to college. The last pages show Scott meeting up with Ramona as they affirm their desire to face the challenges of a relationship and walk hand in hand into a subspace door together.
GAH! Now that that’s over I’d like to go into subtopic #2 which is the comparison of the movie to the graphic novel. I will still use the volume # to compare the two. Think of it as if the book transformed into the movie, and how the actual movie would be different. Vol#1
When the movie does this
volume it is almost as they used the book as a script. Only leaving out flash backs, and some minor details one of which is that not only did Scott receive an e-mail from Mathew Pattel, Mat also wrote a letter to our non interested Mr. Pilgrim. Vol#2
This part of the movie, the movie decides to skip an important flash back when Scott was in high school, this flash back contained info on how Scott started his first of many bands, how Kim started dating Scott, and a new character Lisa Miller. The movie excludes Lisa from the movie entirely. In the movie Scott meets Lucas Lee unknowing that he’s an evil-ex. This differs from the book in the way that in the book Scott knew Lucas was an evil-ex and purposely searches him out after training by watching Lucas’s movies which Scott gets from a video rental store at which Kim works.
The battle between Scott and Lucas is totally different between book and movie. The movie shows that Lucas’s stunt men attempt to beat Scott, and Scott emerging victorious then coaxes Lucas to do a “grindy thingy” on the rail behind them. Lucas accumulates too much speed and crashes into the pavement at the end of the rail. The book Lucas dies the same, but in the battle Lucas beats the crap out of Mr. Pilgrim and they take an actual lunch break before Lucas’s inevitable doom. The movie also moves Ramona and Knives’s fight to this book. In the book it takes place at the Toronto Resource library while Ramona is with Scott’s sister Stacy. Vol#3
The movie does this volume like 55% accurate.
Let’s start when knives gets the highlights punched out of her hair. In the movie Todd Ingram (Ramona’s 3rd evil-ex) does the punching but in the book, Lynette, The Clash at Daemonhead’s drummer punches the highlights out. Here we have another switch of battle sequences. In the movie Ramona fights Roxie Richter with the hammer in the next Volume, but in this book Ramona’s fights Envy Adams, Scotts ex. Also in the book Roxie’s “weakness” is given to Envy and a line switches between characters. In the movie Ramona say’s “when we were making out I would just…” then Scott interrupts, and in the book Scott tells Ramona this after she fights envy. The Battle is similar between Scott and Todd, the main twist being that Crash and The Boys help Scott with there new power to control sound waves. Vol#4
This volume basically doesn’t exist in the movie. The only comparable thing is the fight between Scott and Roxie. In the movie Scott fights Roxie at The Clash at Deamonhead after party after Ramona has a mini battle with Roxie herself. In the book the fight takes place in Ramona’s backyard and Scott earns the Power of Love sword after confessing his love to Ramona. In the movie Scott earns this sword when he fights Gideon. Scott then uses the sword do defeat Roxie Ninja Gaiden Style. Vol#5
This volume is shortly lived in the movie as this whole volume is basically the Katyanagi twin battle. In the movie Scott defeats the twins via a Battle of the Bands amp vs amp battle then earning a 1-UP. In the book, Scott first has to face the
twin’s robots. The first robot is at the party and Scott defeats it with ease. The second is on the roof and this one is massive, but Scott manages to beat it. Scott the n goes to a construction site to defeat the twins. Vol#6
In this last volume a lot of details are left out in the movie, but most of the details are incomparable. The only comparable part is the Gideon battle. In the movie Scott heads down the elevator at the Chaos Theater and confronts Gideon and earns the Power of Love sword, Scott thinks he defeats Gideon and goes to Ramona to “save” her. Gideon comes up behind Scott and kills him. Scott then uses the 1-UP he got from the Katyanagi and retries. Scott rushes back to the theater and confronts him and battles Gideon for himself and not for Ramona like he did before.
Scott then earns the power of Self-Respect sword and uses it to kill Gideon. In the book it’s the same general idea, only a few differences, like Envy is now dating Gideon and is promoting her solo career. When Scott comes back Ramona reappears out of Scott’s chest, and see’s Envy arguing with Gideon, and starts to understand him, Scott then earns the power of understanding sword instead of self-respect as in the movie.
