Save Yourself! #2 actually answers some serious questions about those magical girls. You know, the magical girls from the first issue who were not what they seemed? Yeah, good times.

Save Yourself! #2 cover A.
Here be dragons indeed. Cover A artist: Kelly and Nichole Matthews.

Bones Leopard (Identical) is the writer for Save Yourself! #2, as is the case for the first issue. Kelly and Nichole Matthews (Just Beyond) are the artists for this comic book, with Jim Campbell as the letterer. Kelly and Nichole Matthews are responsible for the main cover art, while Stephanie Gonzaga (Ducktales) is responsible for the sole variant cover. Lastly, like in the previous issue, BOOM! Studios is the publisher for the whole comic book series.

Save Yourself! #2 cover B.
Hmm, looks nostalgic. Like one of the old magical girl manga and anime. Cover B artist: Stephanie Gonzaga.

Save Yourself! #2 will go on sale on July 21, 2021. You can purchase print copies at your local comic book store. If you are fine with the digital version though, you can download it from content providers like comiXology, iBooks, Google Play, and Kindle.

Warning: spoilers for Save Yourself! #2 below. If you want to find out what the deal with the evil magical girls are, stop here and come back once you have found out for yourself.

Save Yourself! #2: Plot Summary

Save Yourself! #2 preview page 3.
When you hear the word “officer” being used for these guys, you know something is up.

So Gigi and her brother-in-law Shawn end up in a secret base at the bottom of the Atlantic. As it turns out, the monsters the magical girls are fighting in Save Yourself! aren’t evil. As it turns out, they are all actually aliens from someplace called the Cosmic Federation. They are basically a space UN, and they are here to arrest or otherwise stop the “magical girls”, who are actually alien criminals. They are basically mass murderers devouring whole planets’ worth of lifeforms to fuel themselves. The phony magical girls had been targeting out of the way planets to escape the Federation’s attention, but now they’re onto them, and they have tracked these “magical girls” to Earth, and want to stop them before they devour every human on the planet. Unfortunately, the Feds appear to have red tape binding them, preventing them from being able to call down their military on the fake magical girls. Not a good thing when you are dealing with aliens with world-ending powers.

Ultimately though, that red tape means that Gigi and Shawn’s meeting with the Cosmic Federation, while revealing (including that Mia is a member of the fake magical girls’ race, has been secretly working with the Feds to bring them down, and has a genuine crush on Gigi), is largely fruitless. The only thing the pair manage to accomplish is to burn all of their magical girl merchandise. Because yeah. Things then seem to quiet down for a while, and then Gigi get the news from her café owner friend, Bear, that a “monster” came in and took Shawn. Clearly, it seems like those fake magical girls are done waiting, and want to lure Gigi out. We will just have to find out what Gigi does next in the next issue of Save Yourself!.

Save Yourself! #2: The Good

Save Yourself! #2 preview page 4.
Ayup, these are the good guys here.

I think my favorite part of Save Yourself! #2 is the yuri. Yes, as a yuri fan, I approve of the budding yuri relationship between Gigi and Mia. Their obvious crushes on each other is frankly quite adorable. It instantly earns quite a bit of extra points in my department.

The character designs are also another point in my favor. Especially the non-human characters. The aliens are interesting to look at, and many of them are quite cute. Mia’s natural form as a pink dragon/axolotl hybrid creature especially looks very cuddly. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone makes a plushie based off of that form sometime later. Hopefully.

The story is also surprisingly deep. The Cosmic Federation’s inability to take more direct actions to arrest/incapacitate the fake magical girls because of bureaucracy in an interesting premise. It feels like a Take That against governments and their love of red tape. As a fan of political fiction, this officially intrigues me.

Save Yourself! #2: The Bad

Save Yourself! #2 preview page #6.
Definitely not evil, especially not with those adorable dot eyes on that shark man.

Honestly, if there is one thing I would complain about in Save Yourself! #2, it’s that Bone Leopard didn’t go far enough into the bureaucracy aspect of this story. I wouldn’t have minded seeing Commander Sef cite specific Cosmic Federation laws that prevent them from taking more direct action in this case. I think the commander might have too, had Gigi not kept interrupting her(?) whenever the commander tried to explain their situation. Although it is understandable in Gigi’s case, given that this whole thing might decide the fate of humanity, and how she was personally affected by the fake magical girls due to her brother’s death. I just kinda wished that maybe she could’ve had her outburst just slightly later.

Conclusion

Save Yourself! #2 from BOOM! Studios picks up where the first issue left off, and finally explained the situation to Gigi (and by extension us the audience). Unfortunately, the whole meeting turns out to be a bit fruitless due to interstellar red tape. Plus, it looks like the fake magical girls are trying to lure Gigi into a position where they can disappear her with her brother-in-law’s kidnapping. We will just have to see if the Cosmic Federation will get off their butts and help in the next issue of this sci-fi comic book.

Source: BOOM! Studios