Review by Lewis Savarese
Minnie Pouches is not your average 12 year old. She towers over her peers, is built like Strong Guy from X-Factor, and can deflect laser beams with her bare hands. Unbeknownst to Minnie, her extraordinary appearance and abilities are the result of years spent with her scientist-cum-influencer parents in the MicroRealm, a pocket dimension full of infinite worlds. While her self-absorbed parents are busy marketing the hellscape realm of New NetherHeck to prospective tourists, a frustrated Minnie steals her father’s inter-realm-teleportation pouch and embarks on a journey to find her lost pets. If that summary felt like being thrown into the deep end without first learning how to swim, you’ll probably have a similar experience actually reading Minnie Pouches in the MicroRealm. However, writer Caleb Goellner and artist Eric Lide quickly and effortlessly acclimate you to this heartfelt tale of self-discovery and familial turmoil.
The Pouches family is the epitome of dysfunctional. Minnie’s parents are wildly successful, multi-hyphenate influencers who prioritize fame and fortune over all else. Their version of “family time” involves squeezing free child labor from Minnie as she lugs film equipment around and produces their 150 million subscriber ViewToob channel “You’re Missing Out on the MicroRealm.” Though they’re suboptimal parents, Goellner never portrays them as malicious, just clueless and vain. Through flashbacks we see that they tried to provide Minnie outlets to manage her enhanced abilities such as space or martial arts camp, then settled on including her in the family business. When Dr. Pouches and Mrs. Purse-Pouches are abducted by Heckskull, a warlord from New NetherHeck, it’s hard not to view their misfortune as comeuppance, but hours in a cage gives them time to reflect on their many missteps.
Minnie is too angry and too busy to save her parents, as she hops from realm to realm in search of her lost pets. Juicy the dog, Eastmaird the turtle, Shimmer the goldfish, Tori the cockatiel, and Flooferz the cat were the adopted family members who brought her solace during difficult times. Unfortunately, over the past few months her pets have been mysteriously disappearing one by one. After leaving her parents in New NetherHeck, Minnie trashes their home laboratory and discovers realms on her father’s computer that are named after each of her pets. This is when Lide’s art kicks into high gear. One can imagine Goellner ecstatic as he conceives of increasingly bizarre realms for Lide to illustrate. Eastmaird is found in a realm full of pizza dinosaurs; Minnie saves Shimmer from the realm of carnivorous floaty tubes; Witches fight over Flooferz in a plastic neon gingerbread realm; and once Minnie finds all of her pets they traverse a handful of realms such as the haunted dollhouse realm. Lide’s art is heavily inspired by manga and anime, utilizing iconography like speed lines, background patterns, and a host of emotive facial expressions. He provides each realm with colour palettes that compliment and unify one another while maintaining their individuality.
Only by accepting who she is, powers and all, does Minnie rescue her pets from the MicroRealm. It also doesn’t hurt that her pets gained super powers from their respective realms, powers ranging from transmogrification to psychokinesis. The real powers gained from the adventure are Minnie’s newfound self-respect and self-expression which afford her agency at a crucial moment with her parents during the finale. Repairing her relationship with her parents will take time, hopefully in a sequel.
