GFT Retrospective #89: The Dream Eater Saga #9 (Grimm Fairy Tales #63)
Retrospective Dreamer,
Conflicted Ticketmaster.
I began reading the issue that is up for review today, and hit upon an Editor's Note that referenced something I hadn't read yet, and I've been trying to adhere to a rule of chronological continuity as much as possible (which is why my Grimm Fairy Tales Volume Eight Omnibusted post also includes the Sinbad Crossover reviews even though the individual issue publication dates were years apart, and why I did that restructured Neverland post a few months back), so I was conflicted, as the byline says, about what I would even review here.
I skimmed through the referenced Volume and found that the Retrospective would flow better if I kept going with the Dream Eater Saga rather than shoehorning in an entirely separate Volume of reviews (and I could write a better product with a two-week buffer instead of trying to blitz it in a few days).
So, the second Volume of Myths & Legends will have to wait awhile. But it isn't a total loss because we get to see what happened after Belinda kidnapped Sela at the end of Grimm Fairy Tales Volume Ten.
To keep the dream alive, please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can afford to breathe for a spell, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my my content.
When I was going over the art for the Sinbad One-Shot last week, I neglected to mention the B variant cover by Ale Garza and Sanju Nivangune (the same pencils & colors duo who did that Dream Eater/Baba Yaga brain-sucking cover for Myths & Legends #6 and the Anna/Pan cover for the Salem's Daughter One-Shot). I don't know why, other than not having a natural insertion point in the finished review (not that it's stopped me from unnatural tangents before...), because Garza has a recognizable art style (I'm just going to call it Hard Whimsy for now) with a genius eye for composing still action, and Nivangune is brilliant with his gradient-based shading and lighting.
The Dream Eater Saga #9
Grimm Fairy Tales #63
This week, though, sees the return of two more dynamic duos: EBas and Jason Embury handle yet another awesome A cover (seen above) for an issue with Sela and Belinda as the focus.
But so I don't leave them out again, there's a B Cover by frequent contributor Nei Ruffino (who's great at dramatic, detailed covers and does the pencils and colors for most of her work) and a Mike DeBalfo/Milen Parvanov convention exclusive (because DeBalfo is a go-to for convention exclusives and he likes drawing Sela and Belinda).
As for the interior art, it's frequently off-model in a bad way but penciler Randy Valiente and colorist Jorge Maese make their style work with great action paneling, animated facial expressions, and tons of environmental detail.
The character writing here (I don't usually name the writers because the bulk of Zenescope's work in these first six years was handled by founders Ralph Tedesco and Joe Brusha, as well as head writer Raven Gregory) is mostly on point, too, as Sela and Belinda battle their trust issues, the Sea Witch, and each other. Furious at Belinda for abducting her from Myst at the worst possible moment (plus their centuries of spiritual and emotional baggage from all of the soul bargains, memory erasure, kidnapping, brainwashing, murder, and fights to the death, and the non-Belinda-related mental anguish she's had to endure with Erik's death, remembering her stolen child, and witnessing the evils of Myst firsthand), Sela has no chill and no ear for bullshit where Belinda is concerned. But as the two are coming to blows, Sela is dragged underwater by the Sea Witch's maga eels (not a real species of eel, as far as I can tell, and it certainly had a different connotation in 2011 than it does now), and Belinda has to come to grips with herself while keeping Sela alive because she needs her that way to fight the Dream Eater.
Belinda's reasoning for why they have to venture into the Sea Witch's cave is kind of dumb ("if we swim to the surface, we'll be eaten by sharks!"), especially considering she killed two giant eels by herself and both women can shoot magic from their hands. But the story has to happen and another vengeful villain origin has to drop, so into the underwater boneyard they go.
As the cover happens (I don't know if I should be disappointed at the spoilers or grateful that comic book covers have evolved past their long history of being analog clickbait), Sela acknowledges a similarity between Belinda and herself that we know the nature of but she can only intuit the existence of (that being their stolen children), and momentarily sets her own bloodlust aside to try to save Belinda.
Belinda, on the other hand (or tentacle, as is the case here), manages to talk herself free thanks to a tale she heard from the Dark One. Said vengeful origin tells of the Sea Witch as a human woman who had an affair with a married Highborn, whose wife murdered their children out of jealousy and turned her into the monstrous octopus-woman she is now (after some thought, I'm guessing it was Venus who cursed her because Venus wants all powerful hot dudes to herself).
Belinda's offer to take revenge in the Sea Witch's name apparently didn't include Sela's freedom (and Sela has "one thing of worth to me...so dear to her she will never part with it"; gotta love the Tim Curry-meets-Christopher Walken emphases in comic book dialogue), but not only does Belinda need Sela for the battle ahead, she needs Sela as leverage to get information out of Baba Yaga (probably the whereabouts of her child, but I don't remember). She also needs to get her hands on a ring that the Sea Witch has (the aforementioned Editor's Note says it will be explained in the next Volume of Myths & Legends). So that comment I made about why they didn't just swim to the surface and blast their way through the feeding frenzy? It turns out the only stupid thing about Belinda’s reasoning is how stupid-convoluted her plan is so far. I guess she knew exactly where she and Sela would end up, and led her to Ursula's cave on purpose to get the ring (which can let a person travel to any Realm - a bargaining chip she uses to incentivize Sela's cooperation...kind of, because Sela's still on a "don't trust Belinda; just kill her and take it" kick). And we learn here that this issue takes place earlier in the Saga because the ring sort of operates on Goku Black-meets-Lord Of the Rings logic: without it on her person, the Sea Witch is sucked through a portal into New York, where she would later set up a fortune-telling operation in the guise of Esmeralda, and cross paths with Pan in the Neverland One-Shot. Continuity be damned, I guess?
Anyway, before the main heroine of this Universe can behead her arch-nemesis for some magic jewelry and damn four fifths of reality to serve her own self-interest, that white-robed girl we've seen in the early first Volume of the Saga shows up (spoilers if you got the Ruffino cover), and the issue ends.
I still don't like what Sela has become since her resurrection. It was interesting at first to explore what a morality-driven heroine would be like with the re-emerging baggage of her past to color her personality and her perspective on the world. But as the big milestone of the time was approaching, that weight and the writing choices around it turned Sela into a hopeless, defeated, hyper-focused, idealistically entitled damsel who wants her man back and feels so put upon by her archetype-defined duty that she'd probably give up on everything if the shitty state of the Universe didn't piss her off so fucking much.
But hero/villain team-up dynamics are almost always fun, and Belinda shines here, even if her scheme has a bit of that BVS/Civil War convolutedness to it. I sort of remember how her story evolves going forward, and being reminded of how low-key deep her character is and noticing the progression as I read is fun.
The fun continues next week, so Stay Tuned and Retrospective, and please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post so I know how much profanity to use going forward, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can afford to breathe for a spell, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my my content.
Ticketmaster,
Out.
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