GFT Retrospective #59: 2011 Special Edition (Sinbad Crossover Part 3)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,
Dragon my feet,
Sailing the Seas of Cheese,
Fishing for engagement,
Hoping I don't catch twenty-two.

I hope that's enough maritime puns for you, because as of today, I'm feeling like my options are limited, contradictory, and wrong no matter how helpful I try to be.

And this feels stupid and immature for a grown man to say (or is it mature and emotionally intelligent to recognize and admit? or both?), but since the death of my one, true friend, brother, pet, and piece of my soul if you want to get spiritual, metaphorical, and dramatic about it, I have felt noticeably less connected to humanity. Like, I have always been a guarded, reluctant friend to others, and I have always found those on the opposite side of the service counter to be mostly annoying, stupid, aggravating, inconvenient, and everything that someone in the service industry shouldn't openly express about the people that they are professionally obligated to serve. But lately, I've been spending less time with my family, caring less what other people have to say, and being less patient with the inconvenient public whom I serve.

And what have I been doing with all of this time that I insist on having to myself? Almost nothing. Laying on my ass and searching cyberspace for something to do with my time. Watching anime. Or wrestling (which hasn't really kept its entertainment value or innovation in the twenty-plus years I "missed out" on). Or playing Solitaire and Minesweeper until I fall asleep instead of doing classwork or blogging. It's not all avoidance mode all the time, but it's enough that I needed to acknowledge it--that I needed to Acknowledge Me--and do what I can to recover from it. To use phrases that I would never use because I am emotionally incompetent and they sound intellectually stupidly obvious, I can overcome this because it is what it is, and it, too, shall pass.

Also, Primus reference!

So even though I'm an antisocial attention addict like most of my generation has become (not to mention the generations that follow), please do not let me pass you by, and remember to comment at the bottom of this post, Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, help out my ad revenue as you read, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook to like and get the latest news on my content.

Speaking of my content, today's Retrospective review is of the not-so-special Grimm Fairy Tales Special Edition from 2011, which wraps up the three-part Sinbad Crossover.

GFT Special Edition #1 (2011): Sinbad Crossover (Part 3)

This is (throwing my sailor's hat into the ring under the name of Captain Obvious) the first Special Edition of Grimm Fairy Tales, and it honestly doesn't feel very special.

We start with an exposition of the "Everybody got that?" villain scheme to recap the trilogy so far, coupled with a bit of street-level comedy and kaiju destruction in Caracas at the hands mouths of "The Shadow Of Death" (which just makes me think of this story as the plot of a Piratecore cover of "Gangsta's Paradise" even though it's the name of a multi-city-level, fire- water- and thunder-spewing King Ghidorah-alike Yu-Gi-Oh! Fusion Monster that an ancient wizard chained to the bottom of the ocean at the end of a videogame deathtrap maze).
Then Acacia reveals that she is literally the worst planner of all time by forcing a man to bring her the leaders of the city "in a time that pleases me" or she will have Coolio's Psalms 23:4 dragon destroy the rest of the city...but not giving the man a specific deadline. Even worse, she later says that the elders "took your sweet time" when they do arrive, and doesn't immediately destroy Caracas, probably to give time for the story to happen. And because most villains are written to bring about their own downfalls, when the city elder offers Acacia and Carou (who is basically just her second banana-fiddle by now) the opportunity to not torture, kill, and perform necromantic experiments upon the population so they can be allowed to live there again (you know, regain what they want revenge for losing by their own actions?), she goes for the "burn the city, kill them all, and let the gods sort it out" option.

Meanwhile, the end of the last issue (Zombie Ceor and his zombie monkey--which strikes the perfect three-way balance between "why do I have to type this absurd bullshit?," hilarious, and terrifying--aiming a cannon at the deck of Sinbad's ship) proves to be less life-threatening than advertised because splash panels are one of the "offscreen horror movie death" contrivances of comic book writing. Just show everyone leaping from an all-consuming, geography-obscuring explosion, and they can land safely wherever the plot demands! I mean, the ship is still going to sink, but the characters that need to be okay are okay, and it's turned into one of those "Namek will explode in five minutes" scenarios where there's plenty of time to discuss battle strategy (Sinbad gives Belinda and Baba Yaga permission to go all-out against his zombified crew, but still doesn't trust them, even though Belinda tries to be comforting towards him), engage in one-sided, mid-fight banter with the undead, summon the roc, and carefully board it with the sinking ship still above water.
Again, I like the small, intense interactions between Sinbad and Belinda, and the idea that she has a measure of dimension and sympathy. Granted, this was published at a later time than the main continuity it is supposed to fit into, when Zenescope was beginning to write Belinda in a more anti-heroic, hero-by-necessity light, as she was in Fear Not, and as we saw in bits and pieces in issues like The Sorcerer's Apprentice, so it does feel a bit incongruous compared to how we've mostly seen Belinda in Grimm Fairy Tales up through Hard Choices. But with or without Future Knowledge, it's still great to see Belinda develop as a character.
Our "heroes" make their way to Caracas and pair off against the villains, with Sinbad engaging in a...heated battle with Doc Carou, Belinda defeating Acacia way too easily (after some...struggling...with a fetish you don't want on your search history),

and Baba Yaga and the roc anticlimactically losing an otherwise impressive kaiju fight with The Shadow Of Death.

But then Sinbad forces Acacia to let Dratini out of the Pokeball, parent and child swim away with no thoughts of vengeance (thematically strong juxtaposition to Acacia herself, but anticlimactic from a third act battle standpoint), and Baba Yaga and Belinda swipe the Cyclops Eye from Sinbad before wiping his memory and returning to the present in a disappointing but understandable status quo reset. Kind of. Because Salome remembers Belinda and Baba Yaga, as does Acacia (though not by name), and Acacia now actually wants revenge on Sinbad for killing Carou...for real this time. And we don't know when this is set in relation to the Sinbad maxi-series, or how time travel in the Grimm Universe really works (though it's probably of the "meant to happen" variety, based on what Belinda says about his future), or the mechanics and scope of his memory erasure, so there's a very real possibility that he will move on, oblivious of Acacia's activities, until the day she catches him offguard and kills him. But then again, whether in print or not, Sinbad is still Sinbad, so plot armor and offscreen shenanigans still apply. Plus there's that whole, "event series where all the cancelled characters get brutally and existentially murdered" thing to consider, so I don't think Acacia will be the one to end him.

Wow. I didn't think I would be able to turn "fights, anticlimax, status quo ending" into so many words, but I did it! I also wrote some lyrics for that Piratecore "Gangsta's Paradise" cover that I was going to put here, but it'll be released as a separate, New Piece Offerings (NPO) post tomorrow because I like exploiting algorithms for increased viewership numbers.
Speaking of which, if you've read this far, please remember to comment at the bottom of this post, Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, help out my ad revenue as you read, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook to like and get the latest news on my content.

Retrospective Web Sailor,
Catching 23,
Out.