Cover Charge #4: More Grimm News
When last I left off, I had just finished reading Unleashed #0: The Game. Things have heated up quite a bit since then, so let's kick off the series lineup from there.
Robyn Hood - Wanted and Legend: One of my favorite GFT heroines gets drug back into Myst to battle Cal King, a.k.a. the Sheriff of Nottingham (the man responsible for taking her eye in the first Robyn Hood miniseries) while also dealing with her feelings for Will Scarlet and (unexpectedly, but not really) Maid Marian. Her allies now include Guy of Gisbourne (formerly King John's #1 assassin) and Avelia, a mage forced into servitude by the Dark One. Not a very eventful followup to the original, but since her crossover with Red Riding Hood, Robyn has become an event regular in the Grimm Universe, joining the Realm Knights (a government-sanctioned Justice League/Avengers-like team of Highborns) for six issues, getting her own One-Shot, and she is rumored to be getting her own ongoing series that picks up where the last issue of Legend left off.
Oz: Dorothy Gale finds herself transported to the realm of Oz after saving a white wolf from the Wicked Witch of the East. Teaming up with Glinda, Thorne (the Cowardly Lion), the Tin Woodsman (who is a traitor), the Scarecrow, and a small army of Boggers (belligerent Munchkins), Dorothy seeks out the pieces of an Oz relic called the Veridian Scepter so she can defeat the remaining Wicked Witch. The costumes are slutty, as one has come to expect from Zenescope, and the story ultimately goes nowhere, but I'm in the middle of reading Warlord of Oz, and things have improved (even though I already know that, at some point in her future, she's going to get killed).
Wounded Warriors Special: The man behind the team of Highborn exterminators that we first encountered at the end of Myths & Legends, killing the mother from the Juniper Tree issue, is given a full issue of his own, where he teams up with Sela Mathers (wearing her Realm Knights uniform) to battle magically enhanced Al Qaeda soldiers and retrieve an unknown artifact before the Dark One can claim it for himself.
Ascension: The Being returns, along with The Innocent, Zagreus, Samantha, and Jacqueline Hyde (feel free to chuckle at the name), whom he has enlisted to help him kill off the Keepers and use their power to become "more active gods" to the people on Earth. But all that really amounts to is killing everyone who does anything the slightest bit wrong. Thankfully, Samantha and Zagreus start working together to gather enough power to kill the Being. But the battle quickly degenerates into a bad Dragon Ball Z fight, complete with giant energy beams and deep circular craters in the landscape. In the end, Zeus uses up all his power (and the power he gave to Zagreus) to significantly weaken the Being, Samantha kills the Innocent, gives up on trying to be either a hero or a villain, and flies off to get her head straight, and Love/Alice returns to Wonderland (I think...). But the Being is still at large.
Realm Knights: A One-Shot taking place prior to Unleashed (Angel, alias Agent Hecate, is still alive) and the Wounded Warriors Special, Realm Knights builds a team consisting of Robyn, Red, Angel, Cross (Agent Hook), Sela (Agent Snow), and Shang (whose alias is a secret, just to make things fun), who are tasked with stopping Cindy and her team of assorted Dark Horde goons from destroying the United Nations building. Following the events of Unleashed, a miniseries follows the Realm Knights (with Liesel, alias Agent Helsing, taking Angel's spot on the team) as they and Agents Wisnowski (the guy from Wounded Warriors) and Ciampo (who doesn't know she's a Highborn) attempt to take down the Titan, Cronus, before he can recover his scythes and gain enough power to destroy the world. This series is the first sign that HiboCorp (the agency behind the Realm Knights) is being run behind the scenes by the Dark Horde, and serving as the Dark One's own personal genocide squad. A later One-Shot puts Ciampo (now brainwashed), Hook, Helsing, Neptune (who also joined the team during the miniseries), Red, Sela (or is it?), and Kiera (alias Agent Phoenix, a new addition to the team) on the trail of the Being. But Hook, Helsing, Neptune, and Phoenix end up dead, Ciampo breaks free of her brainwashing and learns that she has regeneration powers, and Sela turns out to be a shapeshifter in disguise, leading the team on a fake mission so she/he can kill them all. There's always great banter where Robyn and Red are concerned, and the story takes some nice twists, but why all the deaths?
No Tomorrow: Keres, the goddess of Death (never mind that GFT already had Morrigan in the Reaper role) decides to try to end the world in epic Final Destination fashion, but is distracted in her rampage by a man named Patrick (whose last name is either Gale or Clay, depending on who is doing the writing). Come to find out he is the only one who can see Keres, and has the power to cheat death, because of his unusual birth circumstances. After killing off his family, Keres has her showdown with Patrick, ultimately giving him her powers and ending her own life. Maybe. This miniseries made no sense, partly because at the same publication time as No Tomorrow, Keres had active roles in several Wonderland miniseries, and was just recently given her own (ongoing? mini?) series called Grimm Tales of Terror, wherein she finds special people and reads them life-affirming horror stories, similar to what Sela used to do with fairy tales. I just read the first issue of GTT, and I like where it's going already, but No Tomorrow sucked.
Grimm Fairy Tales #83-92: Sela returns to work after the events of Lockdown and Bad Girls, only to find her new life jeopardized by a Highborn supremacist named Jack Frost, a vengeful Rapunzel (who winds up in a Hibocorp gas chamber), rescuing Kiera (later Agent Phoenix, mentioned above) from the Dark Horde, and trying not to get in touch with her dark side again. Oh, and there's an Age of Darkness coming.
Age of Darkness: The Dark One has brought his Queen back to life, and she has big plans for Earth and the Realms. Too bad it's not anything good.
Unleashed: This story arc was a decent follow-up to the events of Godstorm. A new villain (the same one who ripped off Venus' arms) unleashes an army of monsters, vampires, werewolves, zombies, and demons upon the world as a way to ultimately cleanse it so he can start fresh. But there's a lot more going on than what this Being is up to. We get to see what the big deal is with the Keepers.
- The Maker is the chief creative force in the Universe, and the father of Unleashed's all-powerful big-bad, The Being.
- Hate ironically turns out to be the recently murdered Roman goddess of love, Venus.
- Love turns out to be Alice Liddle, fresh from her death at the end of Down the Rabbit Hole, which I will get to later.
- Corruption, who we last saw trailing Sela Mathers on her journey through Myst to find Erik.
- The Innocent, whom we last saw not really helping Samantha Darren stop (one of) the ends of the world, and who will turn out not to be so innocent later on.
- Liesel van Helsing, sexy steampunk enthusiast and daughter of the famous vampire hunter Abraham van Helsing, finds herself in the modern world, confused and a little unimpressed by 21st century technology, and on a quest to reconnect with her teammate and best friend, Sela. Her quest is detailed in a second story at the end of each issue of Vampires: The Eternal, a miniseries devoted to the self-proclaimed vampire queen, Samira, who is deeply spiritual despite not having a soul, and believes The Being is the God to all things that go bump in the night. That is, until he restores her soul at the end of Unleashed and she begins to hate him. Liesel later becomes a series regular in Grimm Fairy Tales, and was given her own miniseries, Helsing, where she follows her father's journal to Transylvania and battles Dracula (but discovers she cannot kill him) and her vampirized father (whom she doesn't want to kill, but knows she has to), and gets rescued by Hades (yes, the Hades), who she won't admit to anyone is her boyfriend.
- Roman Asher, strong, silent werewolf hunter who finds himself in the modern world, on the trail of a rampaging lycanthrope in the miniseries Werewolves: The Hunger, where his views on monstrosity are greyed when his hunt brings him across a secret government facility devoted to experimenting on and weaponizing lycans. He also has a part in the Unleashed prequel miniseries Hunters: The Shadowlands, wherein the details of Sela's escape from the monster dimension are chronicled, and Roman receives cryptic advice from a monster skull that turns out to be enchanted by Samira. At the end of Unleashed, he allows himself to be transformed into a monster (more irony!) called Leviathan.
- Elijah Jones, a former slave armed with a razor-edged whip, who became an adept zombie slayer after escaping from his master with the man's daughter. In Zombies: The Cursed, Elijah finds himself in modern times, seeking out his great-granddaughter so he can destroy the voodoo ring his master used to summon the dead against him all those years ago.
- Masumi Yamamoto is perhaps as cool a character, if not cooler than, Liesel van Helsing. She wears a rune-covered bodysuit and carries a pair of samurai swords that contain the essence of the Eighth Deadly Sin and allow her to banish demons, open portals, and do other cool stuff. In her miniseries, Demons: The Unseen, Masumi has been in the modern world for awhile, met and fallen in love with a civilian, and is on the trail of the other seven sins, whom she ultimately traps in her swords, but at the cost of her boyfriend's life. Rumor has it she will get a second miniseries (if not her own ongoing series) in the near future.
Robyn Hood - Wanted and Legend: One of my favorite GFT heroines gets drug back into Myst to battle Cal King, a.k.a. the Sheriff of Nottingham (the man responsible for taking her eye in the first Robyn Hood miniseries) while also dealing with her feelings for Will Scarlet and (unexpectedly, but not really) Maid Marian. Her allies now include Guy of Gisbourne (formerly King John's #1 assassin) and Avelia, a mage forced into servitude by the Dark One. Not a very eventful followup to the original, but since her crossover with Red Riding Hood, Robyn has become an event regular in the Grimm Universe, joining the Realm Knights (a government-sanctioned Justice League/Avengers-like team of Highborns) for six issues, getting her own One-Shot, and she is rumored to be getting her own ongoing series that picks up where the last issue of Legend left off.
Oz: Dorothy Gale finds herself transported to the realm of Oz after saving a white wolf from the Wicked Witch of the East. Teaming up with Glinda, Thorne (the Cowardly Lion), the Tin Woodsman (who is a traitor), the Scarecrow, and a small army of Boggers (belligerent Munchkins), Dorothy seeks out the pieces of an Oz relic called the Veridian Scepter so she can defeat the remaining Wicked Witch. The costumes are slutty, as one has come to expect from Zenescope, and the story ultimately goes nowhere, but I'm in the middle of reading Warlord of Oz, and things have improved (even though I already know that, at some point in her future, she's going to get killed).
Wounded Warriors Special: The man behind the team of Highborn exterminators that we first encountered at the end of Myths & Legends, killing the mother from the Juniper Tree issue, is given a full issue of his own, where he teams up with Sela Mathers (wearing her Realm Knights uniform) to battle magically enhanced Al Qaeda soldiers and retrieve an unknown artifact before the Dark One can claim it for himself.
Ascension: The Being returns, along with The Innocent, Zagreus, Samantha, and Jacqueline Hyde (feel free to chuckle at the name), whom he has enlisted to help him kill off the Keepers and use their power to become "more active gods" to the people on Earth. But all that really amounts to is killing everyone who does anything the slightest bit wrong. Thankfully, Samantha and Zagreus start working together to gather enough power to kill the Being. But the battle quickly degenerates into a bad Dragon Ball Z fight, complete with giant energy beams and deep circular craters in the landscape. In the end, Zeus uses up all his power (and the power he gave to Zagreus) to significantly weaken the Being, Samantha kills the Innocent, gives up on trying to be either a hero or a villain, and flies off to get her head straight, and Love/Alice returns to Wonderland (I think...). But the Being is still at large.
Realm Knights: A One-Shot taking place prior to Unleashed (Angel, alias Agent Hecate, is still alive) and the Wounded Warriors Special, Realm Knights builds a team consisting of Robyn, Red, Angel, Cross (Agent Hook), Sela (Agent Snow), and Shang (whose alias is a secret, just to make things fun), who are tasked with stopping Cindy and her team of assorted Dark Horde goons from destroying the United Nations building. Following the events of Unleashed, a miniseries follows the Realm Knights (with Liesel, alias Agent Helsing, taking Angel's spot on the team) as they and Agents Wisnowski (the guy from Wounded Warriors) and Ciampo (who doesn't know she's a Highborn) attempt to take down the Titan, Cronus, before he can recover his scythes and gain enough power to destroy the world. This series is the first sign that HiboCorp (the agency behind the Realm Knights) is being run behind the scenes by the Dark Horde, and serving as the Dark One's own personal genocide squad. A later One-Shot puts Ciampo (now brainwashed), Hook, Helsing, Neptune (who also joined the team during the miniseries), Red, Sela (or is it?), and Kiera (alias Agent Phoenix, a new addition to the team) on the trail of the Being. But Hook, Helsing, Neptune, and Phoenix end up dead, Ciampo breaks free of her brainwashing and learns that she has regeneration powers, and Sela turns out to be a shapeshifter in disguise, leading the team on a fake mission so she/he can kill them all. There's always great banter where Robyn and Red are concerned, and the story takes some nice twists, but why all the deaths?
No Tomorrow: Keres, the goddess of Death (never mind that GFT already had Morrigan in the Reaper role) decides to try to end the world in epic Final Destination fashion, but is distracted in her rampage by a man named Patrick (whose last name is either Gale or Clay, depending on who is doing the writing). Come to find out he is the only one who can see Keres, and has the power to cheat death, because of his unusual birth circumstances. After killing off his family, Keres has her showdown with Patrick, ultimately giving him her powers and ending her own life. Maybe. This miniseries made no sense, partly because at the same publication time as No Tomorrow, Keres had active roles in several Wonderland miniseries, and was just recently given her own (ongoing? mini?) series called Grimm Tales of Terror, wherein she finds special people and reads them life-affirming horror stories, similar to what Sela used to do with fairy tales. I just read the first issue of GTT, and I like where it's going already, but No Tomorrow sucked.
Grimm Fairy Tales #83-92: Sela returns to work after the events of Lockdown and Bad Girls, only to find her new life jeopardized by a Highborn supremacist named Jack Frost, a vengeful Rapunzel (who winds up in a Hibocorp gas chamber), rescuing Kiera (later Agent Phoenix, mentioned above) from the Dark Horde, and trying not to get in touch with her dark side again. Oh, and there's an Age of Darkness coming.
Age of Darkness: The Dark One has brought his Queen back to life, and she has big plans for Earth and the Realms. Too bad it's not anything good.
- Quest: Fresh off their last adventure, Aisling, Blake, Bolder, and Druanna journey to the four corners of Myst to recover pieces of an ancient fairy artifact so they can free the spirit of Nyssa (one of the last remaining fairies, and a former member of the High Council of the Realms) from a cursed temple that is haunted by relatives of the Jabberwocky. Meanwhile, Thane (brother of Thorne, the Cowardly Lion of Oz, and another former council member) goes star-hopping in his own purification quest, also claiming to have the spirit of Nyssa in his possession. But this is the Age of Darkness, so things don't work out well for our four Questers, and the fairy artifact ends up in the hands of the same shapeshifter who would later kill the Realm Knights.
- Code Red: This is just awesome, even though it ends about as well as Quest. Red finds herself alone in a HiboCorp training facility, fighting off a Dark Horde army who have come in search of the Cyclops Eye (see the three-part GFT/Sinbad Crossover and Myths & Legends for details). The action is non-stop, the story is easy to follow, and it's Red Riding Hood, and Red is awesome.
- Dark Queen One-Shot: Massive issue detailing the origin story of the Dark Queen, also featuring a modern day plot wherein the Dark Queen frightens children with fairy tales so she can turn the public against the Realm Knights and use their ill will to bring monsters to life. I always like seeing the Knights in action, but this story somehow leads into the Quest miniseries and doesn't say much of consequence beyond providing the aforementioned origin story.
- GFT #93-98: Sela learns the history of her sword and the full power it contains (it ties in directly with the abilities she gains from the four realms of power), scratches the surface of HiboCorp's genocide program, teams up with Baba Yaga to fight a man who cannot die, and tries in vain to change the public's view of Highborns. Meanwhile, the Dark Queen uses an imprisoned Gina (see Hansel & Gretel and Myths & Legends for details) to manipulate Helios, and manipulates the Tooth Fairy into acquiring a rare dragon tooth
- GFT #0: The Dark Queen uses the dragon tooth and the Cyclops Eye to unleash an army of indestructible Highborn-killers called Blood Knights. Short and merely a setup issue.
- Robyn Hood One-Shot: While dealing with bad dreams of her lost Will Scarlet and her nascent potential for evil, Robyn is sent on a solo mission by HiboCorp that will pit her against the Dark One, the Dark Queen, Cindy, and...Avelia? This issue raises a lot of questions that have yet to be answered, but at least one of those answers is coming soon, and I can't really fault anything that has Robyn Hood in it.
- Clash of Queens: The "original" Queen of Hearts is gone and a new one has risen, with the Queen of Spades pulling her strings. The Queens of Diamonds and Clubs have a sultry history that Wonderland has gotten in the way of. Keres' scythe (which has taken the shape of the Ebony Blade) has turned Wonderland's children into a village of the damned upon returning to the realm of madness, and the four Queens have sent out their armies to collect the blade. But a servant of the Dark Queen, the Trickster, has her own designs for recovering the blade, and pits the four suit monarchs against one another. It pissed me off that after so little page time, the new Queen of Hearts got killed, but like most of the AOD storylines, the Clash is another means to an end not yet revealed.
- Neverland: Cross and Wendy return to Neverland to save Tiger Lily and the rest of Wonderland from a teched-out Dark Horde and the Goblin Queen and her army. Since the suckiness will never end, Tiger Lily gets killed and the Sacred Child (Neverland's most important magical artifact) is stolen and taken to the Dark Queen. This was when I first got the impression that the Dark Queen was doing an Infinity Gauntlet-type thing (taking the fairy vessel from Myst, the Cyclops Eye from Earth, the Ebony Blade from Wonderland, the Sacred Child from Neverland, and something from Oz, which will be named later).
- Inferno One-Shot: Mercy Dante and Lucifer are back! In the coolest crossover since Robyn vs. Red, Mercy gets assigned Masumi Yamamoto as her next target, but the two end up working together against the Dark Royals. Meanwhile, in the most awkward family dinner since every Thanksgiving you've ever had, Mercy and Lucifer sit down to "discuss" joining the Horde alongside...wait for it...Lucifer's father (the Dark One) and stepmother (the Dark Queen). Rumor has it there's another miniseries on the way, either during or after the Age of Darkness. I am stoked.
- The Dark One One-Shot: The Dark One cheats on his Queen with the most magically attractive woman in existence, and Lucifer is the product. Interestingly (although I may just be jumping to my own wrong conclusions), Lucifer's mother bears a striking resemblance to Avelia. Could Avelia's blue runes be a seal placed on her to block her seductive powers? I await answers! But this was a cool story.
- Oz One-Shot: Seventy-Five Oz years after defeating the Warlord in the (not yet completely published) Warlord of Oz miniseries, Dorothy is the queen of the realm, and the Dark Queen has released the Warlord from his prison. Dorothy, Toto, and (surprise!) the Scarecrow kick major ass against him. But this is the Age of Darkness, remember? Everyone dies, including Dorothy (BOOO!!!!), and the Warlord returns to the Dark Queen with Veridian Scepter in hand. Her collection is complete, but what will she do with it?
- Wonderland One-Shot: The Dark Queen and the Trickster invade Calie Liddle's dreams, using her love for her daughter to manipulate her into agreeing to be a subordinate ruler of Wonderland under the Dark Queen. This hasn't fully played out yet, but we'll see.
- Godstorm One-Shot: The Dark Queen resurrects Venus, who resumes her quest for power and her vendetta against a now-nearly-powerless Zeus. Zeus says his goodbyes to Zagreus and the Olympians, and embarks on a journey to locate and mentor more of his children. A miniseries following one of these offspring (Godstorm: Hercules Payne) is one issue from completion, and totally kicks ass so far. There is rumored to be another Godstorm mini in the works, as well. One of my favorite AOD plots to date, especially since no one really dies.
- Realms Fall: The 2014 Grimm Fairy Tales Annual, Realm Knights One-Shot (mentioned above), 2014 Grimm Fairy Tales Giant-Size, and GFT #99 see the imprisonment of Andre "Hercules" Payne and Sela Mathers, the deaths of some of the more prominent Realm Knights, and the dissolution of HiboCorp. Though not officially part of the Realms Fall arc, GFT #100 brings everything to a head (literally) when Sela, Hercules, Red, Ciampo, Shang, Gideon (a character first introduced in the GFT Valentines issue last year), and Baba Yaga join forces against the Horde, only to stand in awe as the Dark Queen uses the five artifacts of the Realms to bring them all crashing down on Earth.
- Realm War: We're only one issue into this 12-installment story arc, and not much has happened in the wake of GFT #100, but the last page hints that Robyn will return (fully evil-ized...maybe) in Realm War #2. Can't wait to see how this plays out, but I know I'll have to.
- Wonderland #25: Another of Zenescope's series has hit a milestone. After running from Wonderland's influence, having their lives turned upside down by the Cheshire Cat and the Dream Eater, battling an army of madness-infected townspeople, putting a small dent in the Flower Girls' brainwashing operation (which didn't get nearly enough page time or explanation, in my opinion), running from the Madder Hatter and a new Cheshire cat, bringing the Ebony Blade back to Wonderland, keeping the Void ("the guy the Jabberwocky only thought he was," who made himself look like James Franco) from turning Violet into "the perfect Mad Hatter," and finding out that Alice had a sister named Lori, who now has her own Wonderland abilities and is being used by Charles Dodgson to gain the power of Wonderland for himself, the Liddle women have taken the fight to Wonderland, using their finely honed powers of imagination to un-madden the new Cheshire, the Queens of Diamonds and Clubs, and a schizophrenic pop singer who can physically manifest her multiple personalities (that were given to her by the Void) in Wonderland, and amass an army against the Queen of Spades. In Wonderland #25, Calie ultimately kills the Queen of Spades and assumes her place as the White Queen of Wonderland. Diamonds and Clubs requite their romance as civilians on Earth, but before the newly crowned Calie can even begin to celebrate, Wonderland shakes apart and plunges to Earth.
I guess I don't understand what the Dark Queen really did at the end of GFT #100 because apparently, not all of Wonderland has been fused onto Earth. Calie still uses portals to travel back and forth between the two, and she shows no sign that she knows the Wonderland-shaking quake ever took place.
Anyway, as Calie is using her White Queen powers to un-madden and free Wonderland's card soldiers and other victims, Sela hacks and slashes her way through carnivorous mushrooms and remnants of the Queen of Spades' shadow army ("I hate Wonderland crap," she says on a few occasions), who have spilled out of the Rabbit Hole entrance into Earth. But the Shadow Spades have apparently undergone their own purification at some point, and flee when Sela uses Neverland energy to turn one of them human. The issue ends with Sela following the retreating Spade soldiers back through the Rabbit Hole and taking up arms against Calie, who hasn't yet had the opportunity to explain that she's just as clueless about the Spades' intentions as Sela. Three more issues to come, plus a 26th issue of Wonderland, so this already awesome franchise is gearing up to be even more awesome in the future.
No letter grades again, so just take my impression of things at face value. And stay tuned for more remixes, characters, reviews, and soundtrackery to come.
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