the first series of mangas centered around Graystripe, Millie, and their quest to find

Thunderclan once again.

However, I'll say now that I really do not like this book nearly as much as I like the

sweet little tale of The Lost Warrior, let alone the everlasting cuteness that is Warrior's

Refuge.

Graystripe's character in these mangas never matched that of the main series, but this

book's portrayal of him contradicts even its own previous works and is genuinely uncomfortable

to read at points, especially knowing how previous entries handled their relationship

and how Millie reacts to it all.

Warrior's Return was released on April 22nd of 2008, four months after both Warriors Refuge

and Dark River and the same day as Outcast.

Four months to complete a book is already a rapid turnaround but making a graphic novel

in that timeframe is ridiculously impressive.

As with the previous two entries, Warrior's Return was written by Dan Jolley and illustrated

by James L. Barry, who I must assume was either working on two manga entries at once or did

not get much sleep for those four months.

Also as with the other two entries in this series, this book begins with an anonymous

Erin Hunter's note, this time giving a mild refresher on the last book's content and

mostly asking probing questions to engage the reader and get them excited about where

Graystripe's journey may lead now that he is finally faced with the prospect of following

the clans to their new home.

Unlike the last two entries though, Warrior's Return only has a distinct speaking cast of

11 cats, a drop by 5, and unsurprisingly, the percentage of lines in the top 5 cats

went up substantially, from 85% to 96%, and even the cat with the fifth most lines in

the book, Barley, only speaks 6 times.

Even with these statistics, though, it's nice to note that Graystripe and Millie's

linecounts have evened out a bit for this book, with Millie having over a hundred lines

for the first time so that she seems on par with Graystripe, who also has more lines in

this manga than either of the previous ones.

Now without further ado, let's see how Graystripe's adventure ends.

When last we left off, Graystripe had just located the Great Sycamore, one of the last

recognizable elements of his old home and also one of the last trees left standing in

Thunderclan territory.

Though he had found where his home used to be, that home itself, and the cats in it,

were gone.

Now he sadly walks through what used to be his camp and, resting in the medicine den,

tells Millie more about the clans.

When he wakes up the next morning, she has already decided that they're going to go

looking for his clan.

Graystripe assumed that they were all taken like he was, but Millie wants him to be certain

before he gives up, and with Millie's hopes and Graystripe's memories, they decide to

keep going, past the sun-drowned place that the traveling group from The New Prophecy

talked about.

First though, they visit and see what has become of each clan's territory, and soon

enough they find Ravenpaw and Barley at their barn, who explain what happened to Firestar

and the rest of the clans, along with the general direction they went.

Graystripe and Millie spend the night in the barn where Millie gets a chance to demonstrate

how talented she has become before they set off.

As they're leaving, we get a very sweet little moment where Barley asks if Ravenpaw

is okay, and Ravenpaw says that he is, but that Graystripe was the last connection he

had to the forest, and now that is gone too.

Graystripe and Millie begin traveling, first through a dense twolegplace with some mean

twolegs and messy sewers and then towards the outskirts, where there is a house surrounded

by grass and a tree with a tire swing, much closer to where Millie came from.

Because they are hungry, Millie wants to take the opportunity to get some food from inside,

which Graystripe is…shall we say, less than receptive to.

He gets very angry with her for even suggesting it, because clan cats hunt.

They aren't kittypets.

Millie is perturbed but doesn't argue further.

The next day they reach a fenced-in flock of sheep and Graystripe wants to go through

them.

Millie asks why they couldn't just walk around and Graystripe gives two responses:

first that it would take too long, and second that going Millie's way would require walking

on a twoleg path.

It is this second response that Millie takes issue with, as it seems that anything even

related to twolegs has now become off-limits.

Millie points out that he didn't take this much issue with twolegs when he was a kittypet

himself and Graystripe says he was wrong and he needs to correct his behavior now that

he's once again dedicated to being a warrior.

Millie, once again, reluctantly agrees and takes Graystripe's way through the sheep,

who promptly run them over as soon as the herding dogs showed up.

Graystripe and Millie are now hungry and nearly died.

This makes Millie even more mad and Graystripe decides to just leave rather than responding

and, in his head, comments on how he can't back down now because it might mean losing

sight of what a warrior is again.

They arrive at a truckstop, a place that disturbs Graystripe because of the excess of monsters,

and find a cat there who is unfortunately asleep at that moment.

Spotting a cat-flap in the main building, Millie decides on her own to go in and get

some food, and despite Graystripe's continued protests she goes in anyway and leaves him

to mope on his own.

After she comes out having eaten her fill, Graystripe finally agrees to go in and get

something to eat but is hit and chased out with a mop before he can get a single bite

in.

Millie genuinely apologizes since she had no idea that would happen and Graystripe absolutely

blows up at her, not only calling her idea, kittypet food, or the twolegplace worthless,

but telling Millie that he should have known her idea would be a bad one because she's

still a kittypet, not a warrior, and she should return to her comfy house instead of facing

the real world with him.

Millie tries to calm him down and as he turns around to insult her one last time, a car

hits Graystripe and sends him flying.

Despite everything he just said, Millie immediately leaps in to save him and that cat we saw sleeping

earlier, Diesel as he calls himself, helps as well.

They get him into the odd barn, the garage, and Diesel gives him a mouse for breakfast.

While Graystripe was asleep, Millie asked Diesel if he had seen any clan cats, which

he hadn't, but he does know where the sun-drowned place is, or as he calls it, the sea.

Grumpy Graystripe tries to leave right away but his leg is still very hurt and Diesel

teasingly taps him in the hit area to show how much he needs to rest.

Diesel also notices how amazing Millie is at hunting and tells Graystripe he's lucky

to have her.

Graystripe says he doesn't feel particularly lucky.

Graystripe keeps feeling left out as Millie teaches and spends time with Diesel and he

is left behind because he needs to rest.

The only time he spends with Millie alone is when she is taking care of him.

After an undetermined time skip, he finally decides to try talking to her.

The three cats are sitting on top of the truckstop and Diesel points out one monster that's

coming from the sea; he can tell because of the salt and fish smells, and the colors and

sounds from the monster have changed.

Millie asks if Diesel would ever want to go to the sea himself but he's happy there.

That night, Millie brings Graystripe a mouse.

He says he has gotten better and could hunt himself, and Millie says she knows but likes

being able to do things for him.

Graystripe then makes an attempt at confessing what we can assume are his feelings for her

and is cut off by Millie suggesting they should ride a monster to the sea, a faster route

that would put less strain on his shoulder, which of course shocks and terrifies Graystripe,

but Diesel shows up to explain they discussed this already and he thinks it would work.

Knowing Millie discussed it with Diesel before him only makes him angrier and he, once again,

blows up at her, asking rhetorically if she understands how dangerous monsters are, which

Millie does.

Of course she does.

She was a kittypet.

But, knowing the risks, she wanted to take that chance for him.

Despite this, Graystripe walks away without giving an answer again and broods about how

the twolegs destroyed his way of life, and wonders if going back to the clans in a monster

would be spitting on the warrior code.

By the next morning though, he had decided to go along with their plan.

Diesel picks out a monster heading towards the sea and, with difficulty, Millie and Graystripe

hop in the trunk and Graystripe tries to contain his sickness as they ride along.

They spend a night in a parking lot while the twolegs are in an inn and get attacked

by some kittypets who hate wild cats as much as Graystripe suddenly hates kittypets.

Even Millie saying she *was* a kittypet isn't enough to dissuade them, as she now carries

the smell of wilderness.

They fight them off but Graystripe's shoulder is hurt again and their monster starts to

leave, with them barely catching it in time.

They reach the sun-drowned place and start searching for where Firestar would have gone

next, asking a random cat in the woods about the clans along the way before coming upon

the lake.

Then, seeing the full moon above, Graystripe pauses and asks Millie to speak before they

go down.

He explains that he knows he's been hard to deal with and that being a warrior is difficult,

but Millie has helped him so much and he never would have gotten there without her.

He asks her to be his mate, and Millie says that's what she's always wanted.

They walk in quiet harmony down to the island and, on the other side, find Firestar and

the rest of the cats who make up his home.

So I did my genuine best to contain my emotions during the summary portion this time.

Let's uh…get the good stuff out of the way first, because this isn't as bad as,

say, Outcast.

I think some of the most stand-out moments were actually at the very beginning and very

end of this novel.

The opening camp scene I'm currently drawing a page of was genuinely heart wrenching.

We see all of these different little places, intimately familiar to Graystripe and familiar

to us through the words of the first arc, and they've all been abandoned, run down,

or destroyed.

Graystripe's narration tells us of each place he recognizes, but he says nothing aloud,

and the only dialogue is Millie saying she is sorry before he goes in to rest and grieve

in the medicine den, the only piece of his home that was left standing.

It's a powerful, emotional scene, carried by the ability to show expressions and body

language rather than describing everything.

The very last scene is similar.

If we are able to completely ignore the context of everything else that happened in the book,

Graystripe pausing just before he gets everything he's been searching for to verbally explain

and thank Millie for all she has done for him and ask if they could be together forever

is extremely heart-warming, and certainly succeeds at one of the arc's two overall

goals of showing us how Graystripe found his new mate he showed up with in The Sight.

Again, ignoring the middle of the book, their relationship has easily been one of the best

and most developed parts of this manga series, and the ability for them to just walk in a

contented, harmonious silence as they approach the gathering is a show of how close and how

strong of a pair they have become.

Also, and on a much less significant note, seeing Ravenpaw and Barley again was a real

treat.

A lot of their short time in the book was devoted to exposition so Graystripe and Millie

would have any idea of where to go but at the very end, as Barley notices something

is wrong and checks in on Ravenpaw, who is quietly disappointed at seeing the last vestige

of his old home leave, we get a sliver of their care for each other and Ravenpaw's

complex feelings about the clans.

It's very brief, but realistic and sweet.

Okay…I think we need to talk about Graystripe's behavior in this book now.

First off, as I've been saying since The Lost Warrior, the Graystripe depicted in the

magas is not the same cat and doesn't have the same whims, personality, or motives as

the Graystripe seen in the main series.

Manga Graystripe has always been grumpy, quick to give up, slow to trust, and a careful,

rational decision maker, where the first arc depicted him as lighthearted, determined,

quick to put his trust in anyone, and pretty impulsive, tugged by his emotional heartstrings

wherever he went.

Manga Graystripe sometimes gets desperate around things that are important and emotionally

driven for him, most notably returning to Firestar and the clans at large, but for the

most part he seems much more logical and careful than the first arc's Graystripe could ever

hope to be.

He was also, notably, kind.

He cared for Millie, he cared for Husker and their family of barn cats, he even cared for