GFT Retrospective #79: Grimm Fairy Tales #61 & #62

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the Ticketmaster

I've decided to go off-schedule this week for several reasons. First of all, doing the Mother Nature arc as individual issue releases hasn't been as good for analytics as I expected. Part of this, I'm attributing to Hurricane Milton knocking out some people's ability to access my content. The rest, I'm attributing to the fact that not having a fairy tale source to do comparative analysis with, combined with having five issues in a row on the same subject, has made these past few posts feel thin and repetitive...from both ends.

In the past, I have done story arc-based posts as one, bundled review (see my posts on what I called The Redemption Arc and The Song Of Ice and Snow Arc). But that was when I had an offline backlog to work with. Now, I'm less sure not only of my ability to read and review multiple issues in a week while also attempting to review entire television series, but of what I will be reviewing next in the continuity because I am doing them week-to-week now, and that leaves much less time for research and quality writing. If I could afford to hire a ghost-writer to pick up the slack on this passion-pursuit of mine...that I'm not getting paid for!...I would. But it's hard enough trying to get the job I want so that I can comfortably and happily dig my way out of the circumstances I've gotten myself into.

Ahem.

I've already talked about the various uses of "Natural" and the prevalence of the Mother Nature figure in pagan, Wiccan, and polytheistic mythologies when I reviewed Grimm Fairy Tales #58, the concept of "human nature" was the subject of The Scorpion and the Frog, and it was revealed in Grimm Fairy Tales #59 that the Greek Titans exist (or existed) in the Grimm Universe, so check out those posts to get your brain caught up.

Instead, let's talk about dragons because there's a dragon in this one, and maybe a reference or two to Dragon Ball‽ I'll have to give my thoughts on the first two episodes of Daima on Monday, aren't I?

The oldest discovered dragon legends originated in Near East regions like Mesopotamia and Sumeria, and probably evolved from early discoveries of dinosaur skeletons or encounters with crocodiles in those areas. And as was often the case in early history (and some would believe, whether genuinely or for memetic attention, in modern history), limited scientific knowledge led to the experts making shit up. Giant bird-lizard skeleton? Must be an evil, primordial monster that breathes fire, right? Well, if it's that badass, what killed it? Half-god superhero with celestial weapons. Oh; okay. Cool! Mystery solved!

Of course, every ancient culture, even us "civilized, advanced" white guys, has at least one dragon figure in its mythology. Hell, aside from China and Japan, we probably have the most dragons. The Round Table knights were always going on quests to slay dragons for treasure and glory, Ireland has Nessie, the Vikings had enough element dragons across the Nine Realms to make a Captain Planet dragon if they wanted to, and the Greco-Romans literally invented the word in addition to having hydras, sea serpents, and Titan-era monsters in their myths that were their version of the "biblically accurate angel" meme.

But what if fiction comes to have its own myths? Keep reading to find out, and please do the natural thing: remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment any other uses of natural you can think of at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can continue to afford clothes, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my organically sourced content.

GFT #61

That part about fiction having its own draconic myths? It starts here. Now that we have learned how Gaia became Druanna (losing most of her powers as a consequence of the Dark One's fairy genocide, getting rescued by Shang's cockatoos, and moving in with the king of Tallus as a priestess), a new flashback opens this issue: one about a distant age when dragons rose and turned the world of Myst to ash. Not even the appearance of Mystic heroes was enough to stop them; only their own mindless wrath could bring about their downfall. When the dragons finally wiped themselves out, all trace of them was destroyed, but for a single claw of a shadow dragon (Dragon Ball references!). Over time, that claw would make its way into the hands of Orcus, who would offer it to Morgarzera (who declined, knowing that it would be the end of his humanity if he used it on himself) and then pass it on to Morgarzera's vengeful apprentice, Gruel. With the attack on Tallus in its second phase, Gruel has used the claw's power and brought fear of the dragons back to Myst.

Because our heroes (Sela, Blake, Bolder, Druanna, and King William - who, it's refreshing to see, isn't just another easily corrupted, hedonistic puppet-king, but a badass leader with a clear, positive character arc) are occupied with the Gruel-dragon, there won't be much story to talk about until the next issue. What is important is that dragons are immune to Mystic weapons, meaning that something from another realm (like Blake's bow-and-arrow, though Bolder's pickaxe, which Druanna said was forged in Oz, could have also worked) has to deliver the finishing blow.

Also, Sela goes to fight the Gruel-dragon (it's one of those "you want revenge on me but I don't know who you are or why you hate me so much" dynamics that either works comedically, or falls flat dramatically like it does here) and basically begs it to kill her because she’s sick of endlessly fighting random evil for the sake of it.

This is disappointing because she means it, but it also makes a kind of sense because ever since she came back from the dead, Sela has been free from the memory-erasing influence of the Timepiece, and since losing her love and being trapped in Myst, she's seen more evil on a larger scale and more consistently than she can remember. However, she plays it off like she was just buying time (it works), and the Gruel-dragon's breath overloads Morrigan's bracer, so she doesn't have to worry about that anymore, at least.

Oh, and that whole "issue #59 is super-horny" thing? The artists don't do Druanna any favors (she still looks over-gradiented and cartoonishly, memetically off without pupils in these issues),

but neither do they skimp on making Blake look like an. Absolute. Physical. Specimen. Yeah; he hasn't been wearing a shirt for three issues now, and every part of his body has enough six-packs to give everyone in Myst a free beer. Like, I'm straight, but damn!

Anyway, Bolder smashes Blake a pedestal with that geomancy pickaxe of his, Blake says his auto-aim spell, we get a cool, multi-panel perspective shot of the arrow penetrating the Gruel-dragon's heart, and Blake freaks out when Bolder, Sela, and William are seemingly crushed to death under the monster's weight as the issue ends.

Not the most lore-rich issue I've ever covered, and it takes some thought to like Sela here because she almost rides the old sewer slide, but the art style works for the most part (sorry, Druanna!), William's heroic development was satisfying, we get a little bonding moment with Blake and Bolder where we learn how Wonderland got sane representation on the Council, and the action was fast and easy to follow.

GFT #62

I didn't think I would have that much to say about the last issue, so I read ahead and changed my posting plans, and I'm glad I did because this is the conclusion to the Mother Nature arc, and it's one packed publication.

With Gruel defeated and the remnants of Orcus' invasion force brought down by King William and his citizen army, Myst itself begins to tremble in fear of an as-yet-unknown evil beyond anything that anyone could hope to stand against without plot armor.

The good news is that Sela, Bolder, and King William weren't crushed to death by the Gruel-dragon corpse after all (because main character, geomancy, and hero of the arc, respectively).

Sela later revisits her exchange with the Gruel-dragon, possibly introducing a contradiction to her established history with evil, death, and resolve, but maybe I'm reading it wrong....

As the storm rages in Myst, Druanna warns our trio that it is an omen of greater evil and suffering to come, and leads them to the remains of her garden, where Sela lends her magic to restore it so Druanna can have the power to honor their requests. Huh. A reluctant heroine in a strange land and her companions seek favors from a green mage. Where have I heard that before...?

That will have to wait because the citizens of Tallus want Druanna to wash away the shadow dragon carcass and the bodies of Orcus' fallen army, but she refuses because they betrayed Sela and her companions, and must live with the sight and stench of their consequences. Good message, but didn't Orcus say that a dragon's body was so full of magic that anyone with enough darkness in their heart to forsake their humanity could become a dragon if they wanted it badly enough and made contact with it? Isn't that why nearly all of the original draconic remains were destroyed in the first place? And Druanna's just letting a full, fresh dragon carcass sit and rot in Tallus to prove a point‽ This makes no sense! I mean, it doesn't really ever come up again as a threat that I can remember, but it's still a stupid thing to write for one of the wisest and most powerful people in Myst to do and say.

What isn't stupid are the implications of what comes next. Druanna pairs up Blake (looking to reform the Council Of the Realms) and Bolder (looking to clear his name of his evil brother's legacy) for...let's call it a Quest, shall we? She is also about to join powers with Sela and open the path to Limbo...when Belinda suddenly pops out of a portal, one-shots Druanna, Blake, and Bolder, and kidnaps Sela to "help fix some things" (perhaps a certain crossover event that's coming up?).

Considerably less cool, but still interesting, Orcus finds what looks like one of Blake's arrows, speaks his own auto-aim spell (hinting that maybe the arrows are enchanted, or that anyone with magic and the ability to spit mad bars can pick up any arrow and give it the old, "by my X and by my Y, find Z flesh and make it die," but who knows...), and throws it like he's Vander Decken in One Piece (the Fishman Island arc summary/review is still coming, by the way), killing King William in mid-proclamation and ending the issue, the arc, and Volume Ten on a tragic note.

This issue has its problems (like Sela's defeatist attitude, Druanna's punishment for the people of Tallus not making sense, the cruder art style, and the points of interest - big and small - that never come up again), but it's a fairly satisfying conclusion to the Mother Nature arc that feeds naturally into the next big event and sets the final groundwork for one of my favorite Zenescope stories of the coming era.

Since I decided to double up on the content here, next Wednesday will be a bit different, as I compile my Mother Nature reviews into a surprise (until I announced it just now) Zenescope - Omnibusted post. So Stay Tuned for that and please do the natural thing: remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment any other uses of natural you can think of at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can continue to afford clothes, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my organically sourced content.

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