GFT Retrospective #24: The Song Of Ice and Snow Arc
Hey, everyone. Here's another post that's so long it'll give you even less reason to read it, although I expect more people to click on this because of the title's Game of Thrones bait. But if you're one of the imaginary people who actually read all the way through my posts, you know that the Fantasia bait is coming up next.
It plays out very similar to what I remember of watching Fantasia in my youth, with all of the iconic scenes getting a Grimm Fairy Tales treatment and placing Belinda in the title role.
The frame around it deals with a girl named Samantha Darrin (a nod to the classic TV show, Bewitched) and her pervy professor, Mr. Delroy. Before things can progress beyond obviously suggestive, Belinda comes in on the pretense of substituting for Sela, who would have been teaching the class after Delroy’s. Where Sela is when Belinda shows up to take her place is never explained despite said pretense being used many times in the future, but remember: Zenescope is pretty much flying by the seat of their magic carpet-patched pantaloons at this point in the series, so we have to abide by the “it’s a comic book” excuse for quite some time to come.
Doing basically the same thing as Sela would have done, but favoring a different outcome, Belinda has Samantha read her tale of woe.
Though it feels at times like a poor effort to make us feel sympathy for the devil, said tale in turn provides a bit of actual character development for Belinda, putting her at odds with an abusive mentor of her own and allowing the audience to do some speculation beyond the page for once upon a time. I can just picture Belinda getting this assignment from the Dark One, recalling these early events of her life, and smiling evilly at the chance to get revenge-by-proxy.
Both Belinda’s fate at the end of the fable and the character of Samantha Darrin will play key roles in story arcs to come, so this is a must-read for anyone wanting to keep in the know about important GFT events.
The issue begins with exposition; a tale of a demon who forged a looking glass that brought out the madness and evil in anyone who gazed into it. Could this be a reference to Wonderland?
Either way, some unknown hero shows up and smashes the mirror, thinking he has won, but instead has spread the shards and dust of evil glass (because fairy tales) all over the world, infecting people and getting them to reassemble the mirror (because an evil object that forces people to make the spread of evil less effective makes sooooo much sense) for the Snow Queen (who looks less like Elsa and more like a blue, albino Las Vegas showgirl--what, did Michael Bay write this one, too?).
In modern times, Timmy is at a new school and up to whatever childish level of evil Belinda (who is doubling as the Snow Queen because things totally make sense now) is encouraging him toward, except that a girl he has been tasked with bullying--I guess…but why? Just…why? Maybe because evil child? Has anyone ever seen Orphan or Pet Sematary or The Good Son or any movie where children who are actually evil do actual evil things like murder? Maybe Zenescope did enough of that in The Boy Who Cried Wolf, I don’t know. Ugh, rage tangent.
Anyway, the girl Timmy has been tasked with bullying has a crush on him and actually kisses him. Outside of context, this is kind of sweet because it’s a play on the traditional “girls have cooties” thing mixed with the fairy tale trope of true love’s kiss. But we also have the evil adoptive aunt dynamic with Belinda/the Snow Queen, who uses mirror dust (which, I kid you not, one panel makes it look like she pulled some out of her vagina) and a kiss of her own to mind control Timmy into the following day’s acts of juvenile terror.
Zenescope tries to minimize the whole magical-pedophilia-bondage-by-way-of-glass/ice-vagina-dust faux pas by going deep and telling us that it has become a “girls have cooties” scenario, but one where Timmy sees the girl--and people in general--as evil, and so feels justified in perpetrating evil acts against them. But all this logically does is remind the audience at large that Timmy has a magical, terminal venereal disease all over his face.
Elsewhere (such a vague term that it might as well be the name of the place), we catch up with Sela, who is wearing Zenescope’s first real attempt at a mashup between slutty Snow White costume and 1990’s exhibitionist female supersuit.
We’ve seen soon-to-be-iconic character outfits on the likes of Calie Liddle before, but this is the first time the series has hinted at being a superhero comic, and although in later issues they tone down the raunch--not by much--I find the “we do fairy tales but bloodier and sluttier” approach off-putting.
Instead of the bluebird of happiness, Sela is talking--literally exchanging English words--with a hawk, whom, given the cadence of their conversation and the fact that the boy’s name is Timmy, I will henceforth refer to as Lassie.
Somehow being both here and Elsewhere, both normally dressed and less so, at the same time (because of course she can do that now), Sela and Lassie the hawk rescue Timmy from the metaphorical well, and Sela runs off to confront her nemesis in the final two issues of what I have *clears throat* lovingly dubbed "The Song of Snow and Ice."
This two-part finale of "Snow and Ice" sort of inverts the GFT formula that has been mostly adhered to for the last twenty-two issues. Instead of a fairy tale framed by the real-world problems of one or more secondary protagonists, the focus is almost entirely on Sela, the “real world” setting is replaced by the land I call Elsewhere (which is itself a potential fairy tale reality), and the fairy tale feels more like a flashback or a past life experience than those in previous issues.
From the start, we’re thrust into the land of Elsewhere directly following the end of last issue, where Sela is in full badass mode, calling out Belinda. Belinda, meanwhile, is in full Bond villain mode, playing mind games with Sela and watching her every move on a magical surveillance system. There is a secondary protagonist in the story, but she serves as more of a damsel in distress; chained up at Belinda’s feet is none other than the Sorcerer’s Apprentice herself, Samantha Darrin.
We soon learn that Belinda has been playing with Sela’s mind all along--literally. That deal Sela made for Cindy’s soul? Wiped from her memory. Meeting her brother as an old man in Legacy? Gone. The love of her life from the Timepiece short story? Robert Who? Basically every lost life, every failed opportunity, every bad memory Sela has ever had has been erased from her mind, and Belinda is responsible. Now, you might be asking, “What about The Juniper Tree? Or The Three Little Pigs? Sela remembers that stuff.” Well, the explanation Belinda gives is that either Sela’s magic is fighting Belinda’s on a subconscious level, or she is a “naive, anal-retentive goodie-goodie” (because 90’s cartoon villain insults are apparently still a thing) “who refuses to let go of her past.”
Oh, and the giant Miss Muffet spider is back because something has to tell the fairy tale while Sela stalks around blowing up everything that has Belinda’s voice coming out of it.
The fairy tale centers around two sisters who are obviously Sela and Belinda (though their names are Snow White and Rose Red, respectively, and Belinda/Red has gray hair because irony). Snow is kind and trusting, and Red is brash and suspicious, not to mention both protective and jealous of Snow, who is soon to marry a prince. They find their horse (named Brusha, after Joe Brusha, one of the co-founders of Zenescope) poisoned by a rare snake and enlist the help of a too-conveniently nearby imp to heal the bite. Of course, Snow accepts his help and goes off on her own to do him a kindness in return, completely ignoring the fact that HE. IS. AN. IMP!!!
Waking up later, Snow is informed by the imp and his two bloodthirsty comrades that they were cursed by a witch named Belinda, and need to spill the blood of a pure soul to break the spell. Why the trio don’t recognize Red as Belinda when she comes to the rescue, I don’t know. It’s apparently not important enough to explain, and the story ends abruptly with Red offering to take Snow’s place as the sacrifice, though that was also apparently not important enough to put into a dashed speech bubble, either.
If you’ve never read a comic book before, I’m surprised you’ve read this far into the Retrospective. I’m also offering to inform the uninitiated among you that in comic books, speech bubbles with dotted- or dashed-line borders indicate that a character is whispering.
The artist can’t decide from panel to panel or issue to issue whether Sela’s gloves are black or white, and Belinda goes through no less than three costumes in the course of the story: the Snow Queen, something that looks like a mashup of the Snow Queen and Rose Red’s outfit, and a slightly Mediterranean-inspired femme fatale number that will sort of serve as her supervillain costume going forward. All of these wardrobe changes are sudden and also seemingly not worth explaining, because of course both women can magically quick-change their clothes now. I guess it follows the mechanic of their books, seeing as how nearly every reader in a past issue has been cosplayed into their respective fairy tale, but it just comes off as “oh, suddenly they can do this now,” and whether due to inconsistent art or what I call "non-writing," it’s just lazy.
After the Snow White and Rose Red experience, Sela is ejected into Belinda’s throne room, where the three imp-men and various other fairy tale henchmen are waiting for her. Sela handily dispatches the goons and the Three Bears, and things devolve into what is basically a Pokemon battle with fairy tale creatures, with Sela and Belinda summoning werewolves, giants, Beasts, and other monsters to attack each other.
Eventually going back to a good, old-fashioned sword fight, Sela bests Belinda, but Samantha, who had been sidelined by a curse prior to the battle, is on a ticking clock. This forces Sela into a classic hero’s dilemma: kill your greatest foe or save the innocent. Following the lesson she learned from the spider’s tale, Sela offers to take Samantha’s place, giving her own life at the end of Belinda’s sword.
Despite the inconsistencies, derivative action, and (except for Belinda) lackluster villainy, I have fond memories of this story arc, particularly of being genuinely shocked and engaged by Sela’s death at the end. With the exception of Return to Wonderland, I had mostly been reading brute force, in publication order, enjoying each issue, but not really caring from one to the next what it all meant on a larger scale, like I had some mechanical compulsion to get through the whole thing for the sake of getting through it. With Sela’s death, however, I felt genuine interest and curiosity to find out what Zenescope was going to do next.
You might notice that I've cut back on the links in this post to only include those that refer to past posts. My intention here is not to punish those of you that read my content by depriving you of supplemental learning experiences. I am simply looking to pull focus (which humanity seems to be lacking these days) from other internet sources to see if my click count increases as a result. If you tune in regularly, tune back in tomorrow for the Volume Four short story.
Ticketmaster,
out.
GFT #21: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
If you were expecting Mickey Mouse, you will either be happy or disappointed to find the iconic Disney mascot missing from this adaptation of the Goethe poem that became a cartoon short that became part of a full length animated movie and then a gimmick to be exploited by Disney and Nicolas Cage.
The frame around it deals with a girl named Samantha Darrin (a nod to the classic TV show, Bewitched) and her pervy professor, Mr. Delroy. Before things can progress beyond obviously suggestive, Belinda comes in on the pretense of substituting for Sela, who would have been teaching the class after Delroy’s. Where Sela is when Belinda shows up to take her place is never explained despite said pretense being used many times in the future, but remember: Zenescope is pretty much flying by the seat of their magic carpet-patched pantaloons at this point in the series, so we have to abide by the “it’s a comic book” excuse for quite some time to come.
Doing basically the same thing as Sela would have done, but favoring a different outcome, Belinda has Samantha read her tale of woe.
Though it feels at times like a poor effort to make us feel sympathy for the devil, said tale in turn provides a bit of actual character development for Belinda, putting her at odds with an abusive mentor of her own and allowing the audience to do some speculation beyond the page for once upon a time. I can just picture Belinda getting this assignment from the Dark One, recalling these early events of her life, and smiling evilly at the chance to get revenge-by-proxy.
Both Belinda’s fate at the end of the fable and the character of Samantha Darrin will play key roles in story arcs to come, so this is a must-read for anyone wanting to keep in the know about important GFT events.
GFT #22: The Snow Queen
Either way, some unknown hero shows up and smashes the mirror, thinking he has won, but instead has spread the shards and dust of evil glass (because fairy tales) all over the world, infecting people and getting them to reassemble the mirror (because an evil object that forces people to make the spread of evil less effective makes sooooo much sense) for the Snow Queen (who looks less like Elsa and more like a blue, albino Las Vegas showgirl--what, did Michael Bay write this one, too?).
In modern times, Timmy is at a new school and up to whatever childish level of evil Belinda (who is doubling as the Snow Queen because things totally make sense now) is encouraging him toward, except that a girl he has been tasked with bullying--I guess…but why? Just…why? Maybe because evil child? Has anyone ever seen Orphan or Pet Sematary or The Good Son or any movie where children who are actually evil do actual evil things like murder? Maybe Zenescope did enough of that in The Boy Who Cried Wolf, I don’t know. Ugh, rage tangent.
Anyway, the girl Timmy has been tasked with bullying has a crush on him and actually kisses him. Outside of context, this is kind of sweet because it’s a play on the traditional “girls have cooties” thing mixed with the fairy tale trope of true love’s kiss. But we also have the evil adoptive aunt dynamic with Belinda/the Snow Queen, who uses mirror dust (which, I kid you not, one panel makes it look like she pulled some out of her vagina) and a kiss of her own to mind control Timmy into the following day’s acts of juvenile terror.
Zenescope tries to minimize the whole magical-pedophilia-bondage-by-way-of-glass/ice-vagina-dust faux pas by going deep and telling us that it has become a “girls have cooties” scenario, but one where Timmy sees the girl--and people in general--as evil, and so feels justified in perpetrating evil acts against them. But all this logically does is remind the audience at large that Timmy has a magical, terminal venereal disease all over his face.
Elsewhere (such a vague term that it might as well be the name of the place), we catch up with Sela, who is wearing Zenescope’s first real attempt at a mashup between slutty Snow White costume and 1990’s exhibitionist female supersuit.
We’ve seen soon-to-be-iconic character outfits on the likes of Calie Liddle before, but this is the first time the series has hinted at being a superhero comic, and although in later issues they tone down the raunch--not by much--I find the “we do fairy tales but bloodier and sluttier” approach off-putting.
Instead of the bluebird of happiness, Sela is talking--literally exchanging English words--with a hawk, whom, given the cadence of their conversation and the fact that the boy’s name is Timmy, I will henceforth refer to as Lassie.
Somehow being both here and Elsewhere, both normally dressed and less so, at the same time (because of course she can do that now), Sela and Lassie the hawk rescue Timmy from the metaphorical well, and Sela runs off to confront her nemesis in the final two issues of what I have *clears throat* lovingly dubbed "The Song of Snow and Ice."
GFT #23 & 24: Snow White and Rose Red
From the start, we’re thrust into the land of Elsewhere directly following the end of last issue, where Sela is in full badass mode, calling out Belinda. Belinda, meanwhile, is in full Bond villain mode, playing mind games with Sela and watching her every move on a magical surveillance system. There is a secondary protagonist in the story, but she serves as more of a damsel in distress; chained up at Belinda’s feet is none other than the Sorcerer’s Apprentice herself, Samantha Darrin.
We soon learn that Belinda has been playing with Sela’s mind all along--literally. That deal Sela made for Cindy’s soul? Wiped from her memory. Meeting her brother as an old man in Legacy? Gone. The love of her life from the Timepiece short story? Robert Who? Basically every lost life, every failed opportunity, every bad memory Sela has ever had has been erased from her mind, and Belinda is responsible. Now, you might be asking, “What about The Juniper Tree? Or The Three Little Pigs? Sela remembers that stuff.” Well, the explanation Belinda gives is that either Sela’s magic is fighting Belinda’s on a subconscious level, or she is a “naive, anal-retentive goodie-goodie” (because 90’s cartoon villain insults are apparently still a thing) “who refuses to let go of her past.”
Oh, and the giant Miss Muffet spider is back because something has to tell the fairy tale while Sela stalks around blowing up everything that has Belinda’s voice coming out of it.
The fairy tale centers around two sisters who are obviously Sela and Belinda (though their names are Snow White and Rose Red, respectively, and Belinda/Red has gray hair because irony). Snow is kind and trusting, and Red is brash and suspicious, not to mention both protective and jealous of Snow, who is soon to marry a prince. They find their horse (named Brusha, after Joe Brusha, one of the co-founders of Zenescope) poisoned by a rare snake and enlist the help of a too-conveniently nearby imp to heal the bite. Of course, Snow accepts his help and goes off on her own to do him a kindness in return, completely ignoring the fact that HE. IS. AN. IMP!!!
Waking up later, Snow is informed by the imp and his two bloodthirsty comrades that they were cursed by a witch named Belinda, and need to spill the blood of a pure soul to break the spell. Why the trio don’t recognize Red as Belinda when she comes to the rescue, I don’t know. It’s apparently not important enough to explain, and the story ends abruptly with Red offering to take Snow’s place as the sacrifice, though that was also apparently not important enough to put into a dashed speech bubble, either.
If you’ve never read a comic book before, I’m surprised you’ve read this far into the Retrospective. I’m also offering to inform the uninitiated among you that in comic books, speech bubbles with dotted- or dashed-line borders indicate that a character is whispering.
The artist can’t decide from panel to panel or issue to issue whether Sela’s gloves are black or white, and Belinda goes through no less than three costumes in the course of the story: the Snow Queen, something that looks like a mashup of the Snow Queen and Rose Red’s outfit, and a slightly Mediterranean-inspired femme fatale number that will sort of serve as her supervillain costume going forward. All of these wardrobe changes are sudden and also seemingly not worth explaining, because of course both women can magically quick-change their clothes now. I guess it follows the mechanic of their books, seeing as how nearly every reader in a past issue has been cosplayed into their respective fairy tale, but it just comes off as “oh, suddenly they can do this now,” and whether due to inconsistent art or what I call "non-writing," it’s just lazy.
Eventually going back to a good, old-fashioned sword fight, Sela bests Belinda, but Samantha, who had been sidelined by a curse prior to the battle, is on a ticking clock. This forces Sela into a classic hero’s dilemma: kill your greatest foe or save the innocent. Following the lesson she learned from the spider’s tale, Sela offers to take Samantha’s place, giving her own life at the end of Belinda’s sword.
Despite the inconsistencies, derivative action, and (except for Belinda) lackluster villainy, I have fond memories of this story arc, particularly of being genuinely shocked and engaged by Sela’s death at the end. With the exception of Return to Wonderland, I had mostly been reading brute force, in publication order, enjoying each issue, but not really caring from one to the next what it all meant on a larger scale, like I had some mechanical compulsion to get through the whole thing for the sake of getting through it. With Sela’s death, however, I felt genuine interest and curiosity to find out what Zenescope was going to do next.
You might notice that I've cut back on the links in this post to only include those that refer to past posts. My intention here is not to punish those of you that read my content by depriving you of supplemental learning experiences. I am simply looking to pull focus (which humanity seems to be lacking these days) from other internet sources to see if my click count increases as a result. If you tune in regularly, tune back in tomorrow for the Volume Four short story.
Ticketmaster,
out.
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