Zenescope - Omnibusted #24: Mother Nature
Article by Sean Wilkinson,
Pretty much all polytheistic and pagan cultures had or have a Mother Nature or Mother Earth figure in their pantheon, so it's better for my sanity to just link the Wikipedia page rather than go through everything here like I would if I was covering a simple fairy tale adaptation.
Following a short flashback to Bolder's time as Delphina's assistant (wherein he is painting a picture of the two of them, and she goes to a nearby river to pick lucites - which I assume are some kind of fictional bioluminescent flower in Myst because in the real world, it's just see-through plastic - and she freaks out at the sight of a mysterious, naturally dressed woman with green hair), the action picks up right where it left off.
Getting back to the action, Sela, Blake, and Bolder, along with the survivors of Orcus' previous village attack, are in the midst of fighting off his army of dinosaur-riding orcs. Overwhelmed, they rely on Sela's growing magic (and Morrigan's cursed forcefield bracer she's still wearing because she hasn't found a way to take it off yet) to nuke the army with an AOE lightning strike while Bolder digs a trench for everyone else to hide in. It works, but unfortunately, the resulting blue mushroom cloud serves as a big Google Maps marker for both Orcus and the King of Tallus (and the mysterious, optionally clothed woman with green hair who does his landscaping in the backyard) to say, "here is where the interesting people are; come get them!"
Since they're right outside the walls of Tallus, our group are allowed entrance and speak with the green-haired woman, Druanna, who is both an oracle like Delphina and the aforementioned Mother Nature figure of the arc's unofficial title. Based on the connection to Delphina, I'd say Druanna is most likely inspired by the Greek titan mother, Gaia, but her name is also probably a reference to the druid Earth goddess Danu.
Whatever the case, Druanna reveals that Bolder's pickaxe (shown since his debut to be able to manipulate earth in various ways) was forged in Oz, that Blake's goals are lost in his words (not that he's lying, exactly; just that he hides his true feelings in flowery speech. I can't immediately recall what he wants beyond restoring the Council Of the Realms, or if it is ever revealed or resolved), and that Bolder is such a big softie that Sela can't handle his praise, let alone people being so grateful for her help that they would devote their lives to hunting down chocolate for her. Oh, and amidst all of the fights and long-distance travel we've been shown for many an issue without it ever being in frame, a cart carrying Erik's preserved body just shows up out of hammerspace like it's Optimus Prime's trailer or something because Sela has to ask Druanna how to get his soul back from Limbo.
But Druanna can't automatically fix everyone's problems because the plot says it isn't windy enough (yes, I'm serious) and she needs time to think while our heroes can build credibility in Tallus and the writers can stall long enough for Orcus and Gruel to turn Tallus against them just as the issue ends.
I sort of remember what this will ultimately lead to when the Dream Eater Saga and half of Myths & Legends are behind us, and the issue flows well enough. Even the sort-of-goofy art style has a purpose and appeal to it. But at its natural barest, Grimm Fairy Tales #58 is sexy, meathead filler that relies on the old, GFT #49/Hard Choices brand of contrived stall tactics as a setup for what feels like another "all is lost" moment.
The Mother Nature arc continues by continuing the flashback to when Delphina and Druanna first met in the flesh (the latter, quite literally). The art detail in these first two pages adds a degree of hyper-realistic ugliness to the pair as they agree to go about their business as if they weren't an oracle and a titan (yes, Druanna is later revealed to be either Gaia Herself or an avatar body for Gaia's power), as the latter senses something evil in the bushes nearby that isn't yet revealed.
Instead, the flashback cuts to the current King of Tallus, then Prince William of Tallus, who is shown - depending on your overall viewpoint on the harem concept - to be a very lucky man...and unfit for the throne, according to his father.
In the present, William and Druanna (aided by one of the refugees our heroine's party saved at the beginning of the last issue) stop the citizens of Tallus from sacrificing Sela's group to Orcus...for now.
While Druanna retreats to her garden (because every "I am the goddess of nature; behold my power and authority!" display drains her magic these days, forcing her to reclaim it from nature itself, which is an ever-diminishing, finite resource), King William has our heroes imprisoned as a political maneuver while he seeks guidance from a big, gold statue of his father because medieval royals always and totally had their priorities straight.
Because he is a weak man, despite figuring out that Gruel shapeshifted into a mouse and hid behind the statue to give him false advice (which I swear is from a fairy tale, but I couldn't find which one), William folds to Orcus' demands and agrees to surrender Sela to him, but the deadline has passed, so Orcus begins his attack anyway, unleashing an army of orcs, goblins, trolls, and other mid-level fantasy RPG mobs that looks vaguely like the creators of Doom should respond to it with an army of lawyers (the comparison becomes even more blatant in the future titles where the Horde gets a technology upgrade).
Also, while our heroes are imprisoned (Blake and Bolder discuss Druanna's true identity while chained up, shirtless), we discover that the creative team may have a specific combination of fetishes that they're working through.
In addition to the aforementioned male bondage, there's also Sela's dream sequence where she's pregnant and the Dark One has her forcibly stripped naked by a gang's worth of goblin hands so he can steal her baby, and Druanna's final Gaia reveal where she saves everyone with magic tentacles while wearing nothing but vines and a "bra" made of groping tree branches. Yeah, this issue is HOR-NEE!
But remember what I said about magic and finite natural resources? Druanna's garden is as near-death as the Sacred Child after that big rescue. So, with their most powerful ally near death and Sela unsure if she can blast her way through the Legend Of Zelda Doom mod without collateral damage (also, Sela still hasn't come to grips with the existence of Greek deities after being the Guardian of the Nexus for two centuries, coming back from the dead, and being in Myst for a month), how will Blake and Bolder get through another issue? Is this issue just gender-neutral, softcore bondage porn with a subtle environmental message? Is King William being put over to have a satisfying redemption arc, or will he degenerate into yet another disposable pawn of evil to save his own ass?
As with previous issues in the Mother Nature arc, this one begins with the flashback as its opening segment. In the absence of Delphina's O face, the hyper-detailed, sketchy-lined art style trades comedy for relative ugliness as the red-eyed figure in the bushes is revealed to be a werewolf, and he is joined by the Dark One and Belinda (pre-Titanic, presumably, since she doesn't have her book here). Gaia (as she was known at the time) tries to defend herself, but Belinda holds up a fairy's severed head, with the Dark One saying he found a way to sever "the link" before ordering the lycan to attack her.
But because villains in fiction need to stupidly make things personal and/or convoluted so the heroes have time to escape, the Dark One decides to drown her (which would normally be like trying to kill Godzilla with nuclear weapons), leading to Gaia being rescued by a crocodile (a normal-sized one, not a Croc) and...a swarm of cockatoos‽ So in case you were wondering if there was a dumber "characters can't do anything because of animal swarms" moment than the Dark One turning the tables with insects, this may be it. I mean, getting attacked and bitten by that many birds of that size would hurt, if not kill, a normal human, but this is the Grimm Universe Devil we're talking about here. And granted, Lucifer, Satan, and the Dark One are revealed to be different characters down the line, and he's already been shown to be kind of a chump, but at this point, he is the devil as far as we know, which makes him getting subdued by a swarm of cockatoos feel like a meme.
So after the horse-sized chicken gets his ass kicked by a hundred chicken-sized horses, focus shifts to the present amidst the first wave of Orcus' invasion, where Druanna sends Blake and Bolder to aid the forces of Tallus (despite recent personal history with its king and citizens) in the fight and block the entrance. Huh. A monster invasion of a key fortress in an alternate world where someone has to put aside their trust issues and block the castle entrance with a Bolder.... *Checks timing* Yep; this part of the story could be referencing a major early point in the Attack On Titan manga. And with Druanna in the picture, this is literally an attack on a titan we're dealing with here.
Apparently, this Gaia was just an ordinary girl in Myst who had a family and was beloved by nature, so much so that one day, a fairy bestowed upon her a deeper link to the nature in Myst (where all flora and fauna are sentient beings with souls, apparently) and the Nexus. If you hadn't guessed yet, and you're not reading the comic, this is the same fairy whom Belinda decapitated in the opening flashback, implying that she was kind of Gaia's Supreme Kai figure (yes, you get an Attack On Titan reference and a Dragon Ball Super reference in one post; lucky you!).
We also learn that after she was rescued by cockatoos, Gaia/Druanna was brought to everyone's sarcastic-fantastic "favorite" "mentor," Shang, who created her staff as a temporary link, though not as powerful as the fairy's magic was.
It's funny that, when the army is getting flooded out, one of the troll soldiers comments that the rain and wind aren't natural. Yes, buddy (and I mean that in the same way as when a bitter old man calls a younger man "buddy," which is to say it's code for "asshole"); it is natural. By the absolute most literal definition possible. I mean, this guy clearly hasn't tried to invade Florida or Louisiana in early fall, or he wouldn't know how stupid he sounds.
So, the archers didn't work, the foot soldiers are idiots who don't know how nature works, the giant troll didn't work, and now, we finally get to see the fruits of Gruel's revenge. That shadow dragon fang he's been Gollum-ing over for the past double-handful of issues since Morgarzera's death? The one that not even the master himself would have used because it trades humanity for unfathomable power? It's time to use it, and the issue closes with Gruel transforming into a dragon!
He isn't going to succeed because plot, but this kind of undercuts the satisfaction of Gruel's revenge by throwing away everything Morgarzera did for him (halting his curses and teaching him magic) and stripping away his remaining humanity so that, even if he could kill Sela, he wouldn't be conscious enough to enjoy it. But still; a dragon! Dragons will always be cool!
Unlike villainy. Villains in fiction can look cool and sound cool and do villainous things in cool ways, but they are villains for a narrative reason. They fail for a narrative reason. And that reason is to show the audience that even a sympathetic or suave villain operates by unjustifiable means, and that despite the possible nobility of the ends or personal motivations, the means should not be rewarded. And often times, real-world villains are just petty, uninteresting, self-important fools who can't accept what's real.
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.
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.
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.
a.k.a. The Natural Ticketmaster
"Natural" can mean many things, Ticketholders!
It can refer to flavors and colors derived from non-chemical sources, aesthetic beauty achieved without the aid of cosmetics, being born "cut out for" doing a certain task..., or full nudity.
I won't tell you which of those meanings apply to me at this moment, but I will tell you that the remaining five issues in Volume Ten are referred to as the Mother Nature arc.
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| Art by Elias Chatzoudis, edited by me using PhotoRoom. |
Also, the concept of "human nature" was the subject of The Scorpion and the Frog, so check out that post for a refresher on that issue.
I've also been getting requests on my socials for a link to all of my Retrospective and Omnibusted reviews from people who want to get into Zenescope's Grimm Universe without the financial investment. So here's my Zenescope tag. You can also get a pretty affordable ComiXology subscription that lets you check out full trades and individual issues of nearly the entire Zenescope library. I don't know if it syncs with Amazon Prime, but it's worthwhile if you just want to read every comic book ever made....
I went off-schedule last 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 attributed to Hurricane Milton knocking out some people's ability to access my content. The rest, I attributed 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 those 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.
I'm still trying and failing to make this call to action as natural as possible, so please 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.
Now, collected in its entirety, here is the Mother Nature arc:
GFT #58
The phrase that comes to mind to describe the art style is "pop art meets hyper-expressive ClipArt." It has thick, sharp lines and simple color variety, which sounds like an insult but it draws out the close-up details while giving emotion to the characters' faces, even when they lose detail in group shots and action panels. I also noticed that there's a lot of contrast between linear rigidity and circular flow (the swirling clouds above the castle facade of Tallus, water rippling against riverbanks, wavy hair and log cabin architecture, etc.). It can be kind of cartoonish and retro, but that also plays into Zenescope's original image of throwback pulp sex appeal with fairy tale inspirations.
But all is not lost, because there are more issues to cover in this five-part story arc, so let's move on to the following display of demonetizable debauchery:
GFT #59
Those answers (at least, the two that aren't glaringly obvious) will come later in the arc, but first, an origin story for Druanna:
GFT #60
Anyway, with that happening (amidst the duo's charming bromantic oneupsmanship banter, of course), Druanna asks Sela to super-charge her powers with her own magic, unleashing a weather phenomenon that washes out the first wave of the invasion...prior to which, she has time to tell Sela her entire origin story, leading to a flashback.
Feel for the narrative if you must, but don't try villainy at home.
Instead, let's talk about dragons because there's a dragon in this next issue, and maybe another reference or two to Dragon Ball‽ Check out my thoughts on the first two episodes of Daima, by the way.
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....
GFT #61
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 next review is of the conclusion to the Mother Nature arc, and it's one packed publication.
GFT #62
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.
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?).
Since I decided to double up on the content last week and compile my Mother Nature reviews into this post, next week will feature another double...feature, this time revisiting the Halloween and Christmas specials from 2011. 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. Mother Nature and the Algorithm will thank you.
Ticketmaster,
Out in Nature.
Hire me now
And hear my pitch;
Give me your money
And make me rich!
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