SOCCER SPACETASTROPHE

Following the events of Quantum Interstellar Sports League (2024), a motley group of young athletes reunite to defend Earth once more from an alien takeover.

Unexpectedly forced into a do-over thanks to an ambiguity in their contract over the exact meaning of football, the Planet Earth Defenders again face a succession of alien adversaries, with the ownership of Earth itself hanging in the balance. Winning looks hard enough, considering that only one Defender even plays the game well—worse, nearly every team the squad faces is composed of bigger, nastier opponents. In Dorman’s lavishly detailed on-field scenes, their adversaries appear with ferocious scowls as well as natural advantages, like multiple feet. And, just to make the odds longer, the Defenders must contend with a saboteur as well as a fresh spate of internal frictions and conflicts. Both the prose and the pictures have enough sports content to keep soccer-oriented readers turning the pages, but the Defenders win their matches rather too easily, considering the obstacles. While reforging themselves into a smoothly functioning “chain” behind narrator Wyatt, a white-presenting boy who’s their least athletic but most strategically minded member, the ethnically diverse Defenders wind up devoting most of their energies to resolving personal and interpersonal issues.

A relationship- and teamwork-centered story livened with some soccer action.