GFT Retrospective #96: The Immortals

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Immortal Ticketmaster

(But not for long).

That's a Fall Out Boy reference, Ticketholders!

The band has a song called "Immortals" that was featured on their American Beauty/American Psycho album. Because I seldom watch Disney movies anymore, I was unaware (until I started writing this post) that the song was first written for Big Hero 6.

More fitting to the bulk of the plot in today's issue up for review, and staying on the topic of movies (and weird dates because this Sunday was 5/25/25), Mirror, Mirror director Tarsem Singh brought us the 300- and Clash Of the Titans-alike Greek myth epic, Immortals (bolstered slightly by its 11/11/11 release date campaign).

Speaking of 300 (a graphic novel/film sensationalization of the battle of Thermopylae), Immortals was a term coined by Greek historians to describe the 10,000-man Persian army who were said to be present at that battle and others at their time. Many died, of course, but their battle tactics and rapid replenishment of their numbers gave their opponents the impression of immortality.

There are plenty of other songs, movies, bands, video games, books, and other media that I could list here, but I'd just be copying and paraphrasing entire sections of the internet, and I don't have that kind of time, so Google, Wikipedia, and let's move on to the review.

GFT #68: The Immortals

Covers: Fan Yang (The Little Mermaid), Pasquale Qualano (Lost Souls) & Ivan Nunes (Neverland One-Shot), Francesco! (The Good Witch) & Nei Ruffino (Inferno One-Shot).

After the slightly off look of the Gates Of Limbo cover, Fan Yang is back to form with the beautiful cover below. Qualano's Druanna cover with Nunes on colors is his best female-focused cover so far, and Nei Ruffino handles colors for the Naughty/Nice St. Patrick's Day exclusives by a "new" pinup-style Zenescope collaborator that I neglected to mention in my Alice In Wonderland coverage (but he's done covers for Zenescope before that, from a time when I wasn't mentioning artists by name in the Retrospective yet), Francesco! (that's how he signs his art, but I'm also kind of excited).

Art: Tim Smith III (Black Mask Studios) & Marco Cosentino (Wonderland One-Shot), Eddy Swan (Dream Eater Saga #12).

I can't identify with complete confidence which artist did what, but I'm assuming that the art in the first half of the issue (and maybe some of the last few pages) is Smith's. There are some cool, anatomy-defying visuals that stand out, but it's mostly square-jawed faces that are all chin, with expressions that are either so low on detail that they look Asiatic, or bug-eyed and screaming like the "badly drawn pointing guy" meme. On the other end, Cosentino's art for Erik's lore dump to Sela is much more on model. Swan's coloring is all over the place, making Venus a brunette (she's supposed to be blonde, which she is later in the issue, and was in previous appearances) and washing everything that isn't purple or red in these muted, muddy tones and stock, Photoshop-looking lighting gradients. It's boring and sometimes downright ugly to look at.

As for the story, the issue opens with a middle finger to continuity as we're shown "The Long Ago," when Alicia had already usurped the throne of Limbo (which I thought had happened more recently, according to Morrigan in a previous issue). She brings the Dark One a box containing a mind-controlling starfish (so, legally distinct Starro because different size and color) that is a relative of the Jabberwocky and was enchanted by the Pied Piper (marking this sequence as a lead-up to the Horde using Erik to slaughter the Council in GFT #49 and Hard Choices, so this is fairly recent in the timeline). In exchange, the Dark One just gives Jack to her (which I found disappointing because my speculation was objectively cooler). I may have been wrong about the circumstances, but my cult behavior analysis was spot on because Alicia freeing Jack from servitude and purpose was what secured his loyalty.

We quickly learn that the Dark One has already captured Prince Erik and that Venus is in possession of his and Sela's infant daughter (who is blonde here despite having dark hair like Sela's the next time we see her much, much later). After a cool, Wonderland-esque visual of Erik getting Starro'd so hard his skull explodes,

things return to present day, where Sela is simping so bad that she cuts off Erik's attempts at giving her important information and forgets that his body and soul are able to be in different places at the same time so that said time can be wasted with stupid questions because exposition needs to happen.

Then the art gets good as Erik tells Sela of a group of evil Mystics who predate the Dark One and derive their strength from human worship: the Olympic pantheon.

Yep, Zeus, Ares, Venus (because the Greek and Roman gods are basically interchangeable), and the rest invaded the Nexus and grew in power from humanity revering them as gods, "mingled" with the Lowborn to create demigods (some of the first Falsebloods), and then all of the famous Greco-Roman myths happened, culminating in a war between Venus' demigod army, humanity, and the rest of the pantheon, which she lost. We learn that Venus went into hiding and wound up training the Dark One to surpass her and succeed where she failed.

This issue confirms what I remember about the Dark One having the Jabberwocky installed as ruler of Wonderland, contradicting what was told to us in Alice In Wonderland. The Dark One says that at this point, Oz remains unconquered, and the Emerald City holds something of great power that he wants.

Erik's exposition flashback then jumps to a prelude, alternate perspective, and continuation for Sela's dream in The Grateful Beasts and her NSFW nightmare from Grimm Fairy Tales #59 (where Ares abducted Sela so a pack of goblins could strip her naked and pull out her baby).

Now, I'm not going to outright spoil anything for those of you who haven't read ahead yet, but this is where I had a major, "how did I miss that the first time‽" moment because when Erik breaks into the Dark One's Vegas stronghold and gets ambushed by Orcus, the Dark One says not to worry about him because the Horde have "Sela's daughter and the Warlord Of Oz in our grasp."

I've dunked on Zenescope many times for their lack of attention to continuity, but it's moments like this, and the final page of Rumpelstiltzkin, that remind me how impressively long of a game they're capable of playing when it counts, and how subtle but powerful it can be when you discover little things like this. We won't learn the identity of the Warlord Of Oz for another fifty-plus numbered GFT issues, or three to four years of publication time, but if you think about this quote hard enough, you can probably figure it out for yourselves.

With that bombshell dropped, the happy couple's hour of togetherness is up, and Alicia takes Sela to another part of Limbo to make her watch as she uses Sela's ring to...bring Venus to Limbo‽

Wait; I thought Venus was already in Limbo! Then who was the mysterious shadowy figure from last issue?

Whoever it turns out to be, I'm sure we'll learn the answer soon enough, but the issue ends here.

Wow; Bad Girls, a Quest, and now Greco-Roman gods! Things are heating up in the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective, so Stay Tuned and please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read so I don't have to pledge my life to a vengeful deity, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

Ticketmaster,
Out.