Webcomic Review: Girl Genius

 An awesome webcomic has hit the internet! It's called Girl Genius, and can be found at www.girlgenius.net. It's about a mad scientist girl. This comic is by Phil and Kaja Foglio. Girl Genius has been out since 2002, but now you can read all 11 books online. You can also read part of book 12, which isn't out yet. A new comic page comes out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I highly recommend this comic to steampunk-romance lovers. Or anyone else.

     This is what has happened so far: A young girl, Agatha, lives with her adopted parents in a Europe ruled by mad scientists, a steampunk world. It turns out that she is a Spark (mad scientist), but is kidnapped and brought to the airship of Europe's ruler, the Baron. There, she makes friends, invents, meets the Baron's son Gil, and fights mind-control wasps with electric swords. She learns that she is the heir of the Heterodynes, powerful Sparks who were once evil, but her father and uncle were heroes. Agatha escapes the airship with a talking cat named Krosp and joins a circus.

Left to right: Gil, Agatha, Tarvek

     In a town called Sturmhalten, she meets the heir to the throne of the Storm King, Tarvek, and a robot princess. Agatha is again kidnapped, and soon rescued, but her evil mother's personality takes over her mind. Her mother, Lucrezia, uses a mind-control wasp on the Baron, and we find out that Gil and Tarvek have HUGE crushes on Agatha. Agatha regains control of her mind in time to battle the Baron.

     People in Mechanicsburg, the Heterodynes' town, take Agatha to Castle Heterodyne. The Castle is sort of alive and can think, but has a fragmented intelligence. Agatha meets some people she knows and passes the Castle's test to be its mistress. Tarvek and Gil end up in the Castle. Tarvek is in danger and tried to escape with his cousin/bodyguard Violetta, while Gil joins forces with Agatha's friends and tries to help her. Agatha finds out that Tarvek is very sick, while Gil meets a girl called Zola, who is pretending to be a Heterodyne. Agatha threatens Zola and makes Gil help heal Tarvek. Agatha gets sick, too, and she and Tarvek have to be killed and revived. To do so, they shut down the Castle. Afterwards, they bring back the Castle, fight Zola, and start repairs on the Castle.

     Mechanicsburg is under siege. People fix the town while others fight. Gil and Tarvek get onto the Baron's airship. The Baron thinks that Gil was infected by a mind-control wasp, but we still don't know if it's true. Some mechanical knights descend onto the battlefield just before the baron hits with all he has.