Zenescope - Omnibusted #46: Robyn Hood - Wanted

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Omnibuster.

To put your minds at ease if you're a new reader, I assure you that I use my bevy of aliases for my various columns to differentiate them from one another while identifying my singular self, not because I'm secretly Sean Combs or a wanted criminal (unless it's a crime to repeat myself, or to enter the state of Minnesota with slightly darker than average skin, the latter of which I am currently too terrified and transportation-deficient to do, so, lucky me?).

But enough biting topical remarks; now that I've made it uncomfortable to remind you that Valentine's Day is behind us and it's still the Month Of Love (because I recently learned that "Love" was one of Combs' aliases—that he probably kept changing so he'd be harder to sue or prosecute, but that's just layman speculation on my part), it's time to revisit my favorite fictional sociopath who derives empty joy from putting arrows in rich assholes who think they can do whatever they want and get away with it!

Robyn Hood Volume Two

Wanted

As I mentioned last week in the Volume One review, I'll again be curating images from the Trilogy/Origin Omnibus, the Wanted Trade Paperback, and the individual digital editions for this review.

The cover for the Trade was taken from the first issue's A Cover by Artgerm (which got a daytime variant as a Retailer Exclusive), and the Table Of Contents and credits page background is cropped from the fourth issue's B Cover by Alfredo Reyes and Vinicius Andrade, with Robyn in her Mystic costume being given selective color focus.

Living on the run after having killed five men (on Earth; those being Cal King, his father, his two ass-complices, and a corrupt sheriff), robbed a bank, and survived a friendly death match with Britney Waters, Robyn (haunted by nightmares of Cal King, who looks like his fecal Nadsat namesake) seeks out her piece of shit father for answers about her adoption and her inherently abnormal psychology, only to be confronted and detained by the police after getting some minimal catharsis from teaching Dear Old Dad the flavor and aroma of his own teeth and blood with her bare hands. Incredible art and paneling for both the beatdown and the fight with the cops, by the way.

Meanwhile, the people of Myst have abandoned the Kingdom of Bree in the year since Volume One and renamed it to Nottingham, where they spend their days mourning their losses in the rebellion (including Little John) and revering Robyn as a folk legend. But they'll have to save that for the title of Volume Three, because rumors have begun to spread of their new township's terrifying sheriff, and Gisbourne has returned, as we knew he would.

In the last issue, Will Scarlet borrowed the Provenance Necklace from Maid Marian to bring Robyn back to Myst to save Nottingham from Gisbourne, Prince John IV, Avelia, the Horde (who now work for them after being failed by Malec and Orcus in the main series), and the yet-to-be-revealed Sheriff Of Nottingham (but by process of elimination, obvious foreshadowing, and me having read this before, it's going to be Cal). While the villains dismantle the Merry Men and subdue Marian (who has been researching and collecting Provenance gems—shards similar to what's in the Necklace—to weaponize them against the enemy), Will uses the Necklace to teleport Robyn to freedom and they spend the issue building chemistry. It's infuriating in that "we have time for this even though we don't have time for this" kind of way, but it's also sweet and heartwarming and cheesy like a freshly baked homemade cheesecake, and my family has a damned good cheesecake recipe, so I can't be mad at it. Unfortunately, thankfully, or however you want to adverb your statement qualifier, history repeats itself as Avelia moves the plot forward by dragging the awkward couple through a portal back to Myst.

I love the callback of Robyn starting this issue by reminiscing about her childhood, when she apparently wanted to be an "animal doctor" (ironic, considering she once hit a psychiatrist-turned-werewolf with a bus and then visited her in the hospital), and Avelia dropping the bombshell that she pulled Robyn and Will into the Dark Chapel (where Robyn was "born"). And that's not even scratching the surface of the character work on display here. We get a reveal about Avelia herself (the blue markings on her face and body are a servitude crest engraved upon her by the Dark One, and their story and significance have Big, Long Game Energy in the Grimm Universe) that affect her allegiance to Gisbourne and the Horde, and there's more chemistry-building between Robyn and Will as she works up the trust and courage to tell him her entire, potentially legend-scarring Truth. Meanwhile, Marian is shown being used as a magic conductor for Cal's revival.

Will leads Robyn to an underground rebel base, where we see that the remaining Merry Men survived Gisbourne's wrath somehow. I mentioned Little John a few times in passing (he's definitively dead, by the way), Marian will be an integral part of Robyn's life going forward, and Will probably gets ample pagetime and dialogue for a supporting character for reasons that may be tragic later, but there's also Friar Tuck (who offers religious platitudes and not much else so the secular characters have something to quip about in the face of adversity) and Much the Miller's Son (who fights pretty well and doesn't talk...Much, but when he does, it's with a lot of bloody bloomin' sod because this part of Myst is magic England, I guess). The exchange between Much and Tuck here is the perfect balance of funny and touching, and Robyn putting her instinctive mouthiness toward delivering a badass inspirational Speech is a good hype Moment (even though her calling it her "I Have A Dream" instead of her "Independence Day" or her "Tonight, We Dine In Hell" feels a little like appropriation through this modern lens).

But perpetual Robyn Hood writer Pat Shand continues to bring it with the rich character Moments when the swords and arrows start to fly in the Nottingham Rebellion to rescue Maid Marian.

Having previously declared himself as the Palpatine behind King John's Empire, Gisbourne here reveals that aligning himself with Avelia and the Horde to turn Cal into Darth Vader (because they're both enhanced, reanimated burn victims with magic powers tied to the fabric of their respective Universes) and draw Robyn back to Myst, all for the purpose of crushing her legend and spirit and avenging his honor as a knight after she defeated him and let him live.

But how do Gisbourne's connections here serve to crush the public's idolatry of "Robyn Hood"? Well, it turns out that Robyn isn't just some baby from Myst who was going to be used in a ritual, and she's not just the daughter of some random Horde sympathizers; she's a sociopath because she's the prophesied Child Of Darkness, destined to lead the Dark Horde to glory and conquest!

And seeing the Horde bow to the Savior Of Bree is enough to make the citizens of Nottingham lose their faith in Robyn and abandon their cause. But just like with Baba Yaga and the Beast, villains who create stronger villains and try to control them with promises of more strength tend to get rejected by their intended puppets.

Which is made thematically more interesting because that's just as true of Cal as it is of Robyn. He may not be a prophesied messiah of evil, but he has that same wildcard factor that she does. As Robyn has rejected her birthright, defeated Gisbourne for a second time, and stands poised to "restore his honor" by impalement, Gisbourne lies assured that he will at least have a psychological victory over her with the stinger reveal of the Sheriff Of Nottingham (which isn't the Moment it tries to be because, duh, it's Cal). Except that Gisbourne didn't plan on Cal wanting to kill the Prince right in front of him just for the cals and chuckles of it. Oops.

So naturally, with the self-proclaimed psychological mastermind having literally been brought low yet again (this time by both his own creation and his greatest nemesis within heartbeats of each other), the finale of the Wanted miniseries begins with a flashback revelation that the magnificent Guy of Gisbourne was driven to revenge because of his mommy issues. That's right; this once-universally uncontested Renaissance-esque 5D chessmaster of a knight had the importance of honor beaten into him by his mother as a child, and so sought revenge against the sociopathic girl-boss who beat said honor out of him. If he knew that he had been written this way, Guy of Gisbourne might have just shoved a sword through his own chest to escape the humiliation.

Arguably worse, though, is the overwhelming dread Robyn is feeling at the moment, being faced with the nightmare made flesh that is the revived Cal King, the madman who took her eye and his share of whatever innocence she had left. Her internal monologue line of "killing him was as easy as it was cathartic" reads deep (him still being alive and Robyn's expression of catharsis near the end of Volume One appearing more sad, worn down, and terrified than victorious just soaks this line in irony), and the only thing she can think to do (Robyn would usually be more adept at improvisation, but "normal" is currently on vacation in Hell) is to put distance between herself and him, and focus instead on finding Maid Marian.

Marian's "you're real?" line when Robyn rescues her feels like a hole in the plot because we saw the two of them interact in Volume One when Marian gave Robyn the Provenance Necklace (which, how did she get it back, anyway?), and she gave the Necklace to Will for the purpose of bringing Robyn back to save Nottingham. There's the possibility that Marian is just delirious from being used as a circuit for Cal's Provenance battery and constantly dreaming of being rescued, so she isn't clear on what's real, but the fact that I had to stop and do mental gymnastics to construe this explanation is a point of pedantic frustration.

Then there's the moment that becomes inevitable in any Rule 63 narrative and had me rolling my eyes and getting Jungle Book PTSD the first time I read this: overcome by emotion, Marian shares a lesbian kiss with Robyn! Now, as a straight man, I have no problem with two women kissing. But I do have a problem with it being the mainstream default for homosexual fanservice in entertainment media because (and I will admit to having had this instinctive response myself several times) "two men kissing is gross!"

Thankfully (or however you want to adverb your statement qualifier), Robyn immediately shuts it down (because she maybe kinda has a little Scarlet fever heating up). As I said earlier, Marian will be an integral part of Robyn's life going forward; just not romantically, and her story ends up better that way.

Unfortunately (and this is one banger of a cliffhanger; one zinger of a stinger), I also correctly remembered Will Scarlet's fate. He holds his own against Cal and Gisbourne for a time, but that changes when Gisbourne kills Friar Tuck and Robyn returns to get her runback on her least favorite undead douchebag. Shrugging off an arrow through his head, Cal makes Robyn watch as he impales Will, and as a parting middle finger to Robyn and the reading audience, he Sparta kicks her through a portal (because his body is bursting with Provenance magic) that dumps her right in the middle of a New York police station!

The End! Hope you didn't want a happy ending!

Well, this may not have been a favorable outcome, but as the end of the middle act in a trilogy, it's standard practice writing, even if my favorite GFT writer did rely on dude-fridging to drive the point home. And while I don't always like Larry Watts' rotoscopish art style in this Volume, the thematic coloring here (Cal mostly gets pink panels, Will's are...scarlet, Marian gets yellow, Robyn's are obviously green, and the panels gradient together whenever two of them are sharing a panel) is an appreciable artistic touch. I nitpick purely out of love (it's that Month!) for the character and her writer, and though I have a Godzilla movie and another anime to watch in the meantime, I can't wait to revisit how Robyn's origins ended...next week.

There is no bonus material in Robyn Hood: Wanted, but the Trade Paperback and individual digital edition of the second issue featured an ad for the Realm Knights miniseries, and the Trade had an ad for Zenescope themselves, highlighting their website and social media presence that I'll put here.

As you can see, the Realm Knights brand here is Zenescope's Justice League/Avengers team. The lineup changes in the future (and the Council was clearly the team's Justice Society analogue before that), but sometime soon in the Retrospective, Shang will get resurrected (yay) and form a government-sanctioned Highborn/Falseblood team with Sela, Robyn, Britney, and Cross (which is at least as awesome as that sounds, if I remember correctly). I went into more detail about the Realm Knights series in my early Cover Charge...coverage, but I'm leaving that dive to you because doing my usual reprint thing and directly linking the post here would spoil way too much if you're loving the Retrospective/Omnibusted experience.

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99

Omnibuster,

And A Bitch Ain't One.