Zenescope - Omnibusted #50: Robyn Hood Trilogy Omnibus

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Omnibuster.

Originally, I chose to review the Robyn Hood Trilogy in February because she's an archer like Cupid or Eros (just with a more tragic love life and a more murdery disposition). But compiling my reviews from the Origin Trilogy Omnibus in March also works because St. Patrick's Day and Robyn wears green.

So let's look once more at the three-Volume Origin of perhaps Zenescope's best effort at the "gender-swap public domain folk character into legally distinct Avengers/Justice League archetype" formula, brought to glorious life by my favorite GFT writer of all time, Pat "Bolder" Shand!

Robyn Hood, as a trilogy, exists digitally in three forms: the individual issues, the Trade Paperbacks, and the Trilogy Omnibus.

Omnibuster's Note: I thought at first (because I had seen the Origin cover online without immediate context) that it was the intended cover for the Trilogy Omnibus, which seems to only exist in digital form. So I said (incorrectly) in my Robyn Hood Volume One review that the Omnibus was sometimes marketed as Robyn Hood: Origins to avoid confusion with the Robyn Hood Ongoing series she would get later. Not only did I incorrectly pluralize the subtitle, I failed to realize that Origin was actually the subtitle of newer editions of the first Volume rather than the Trilogy Omnibus, though the "we don't want to confuse readers with two Robyn Hood Volume Ones" reasoning still holds because Zenescope was still a few years off from referring to Grimm Fairy Tales Volumes One to Fifteen and Grimm Fairy Tales Arcane Acre Volumes One to Four as Grimm Fairy Tales Volume One and rebooting the series as Grimm Fairy Tales Volume Two.

So, I apologize for the ignorant falsehoods and any undue rabbit hole dives I may have caused.

Besides, we're here to talk Robyn Hood, not falsehoods, because she's an awesome character that fans love and she's still getting miniseries publications to this day.

Robyn Hood Volume One

Origin

The cover used for the first Trade Paperback is another awesome one by Stjepan Šejić, taken from the C Cover for the first issue.

The credits page is taken from the issue #4 B Cover by Jimbo Salgado and Sanju Nivangune, and the Table Of Contents background is from the issue #5 B Cover by Matt Triano and Nivangune. There is no bonus content in the Trade Paperback or Omnibus (aside from what I'll mention later), but I brought up the multiple versions because the Trade follows the mostly standard practice of appending the individual digital issues together (including preview pages, Digital Edition covers, and credits pages), but while the Omnibus appends the three Trade Paperbacks together, it also has special chapter title pages with repurposed cover art and integrated credits for that extra show of production effort.

The timetable on this starts out a little wonky because of the characters shown to be in play at the beginning. First and least confusing, Shang is alive (yay) and shown battling two members of the Horde (sexy ginger Mortal Kombat Shredder and a generic robed priest, later suggested to be the protagonist's birth parents) who intended to enact some kind of ritual in a building creatively called the Dark Chapel, where he finds a green-swaddled baby on the altar. He seeks advice from the Realm Council (of which Allexa is shown to be a member, so this predates Sela becoming Guardian Of the Nexus, which has its own chronological issues to induce excruciating headaches in the reader) and leaves the baby on a doorstep to be raised by an Earth family (because Shang is such a good mentor, right?).

We are also shown snippets of Bolder's time as an assistant to the oracle Delphina (first mentioned in The Fairy & The Dwarf, and later revealed to be deceased), where she tells a troubled villager of someone from another world who will save his kingdom when they are ready.

Many years later, on Earth, we are introduced to Robyn Locksley, a foul-mouthed, sociopathic delinquent with a sense of justice who takes blood money from the criminally affluent to support her ailing foster mother and provide alms to the poor. After stealing and crashing the expensive car of a corrupt millionaire's asshole nepo-baby (Cal King), he cuts out her eye (and he and his buddies do...other stuff to her between panels that is the mustard-like seed you make canola oil from) and she winds up imprisoned by the King family's puppet sheriff and dragged into Myst by Delphina, who promptly dies before she can explain herself. She probably should have seen that coming.

Maybe she did see it coming because she's a water nymph now, which means she can deliver that exposition (minus the part where the villager asked her to drain his life force to isekai Robyn out of jail), except that Robyn doesn't care. I don't mean about the exposition specifically; Robyn doesn't care about anything but what her instincts want: violence, survival, and getting back to Earth so she can show Cal King what it feels like to have his spherical anatomy surgically removed by an amateur with no anesthesia. She's a born sociopath, which means we have to endure the trope where the impatient protagonist ignores or refuses critical information and constantly interrupts the messenger (which counterproductively makes the conversation longer than it would be otherwise) as a means of prolonging the plot and leaving the reader with half-promised foreshadowing (what some would call twoshadowing) to ponder in vain. But Robyn is also a badass who can take down five skilled knights with nothing but her bare hands and a bow-and-arrow (plus her eyesocket is seemingly a conduit for The Gold now, which, if you remember Winter's End, is that nebulous Mystic energy Sela had access to once that can purify evil and fix whatever the plot demands, but here it just lets Robyn use her bow like it has a magic laser scope that's bound to her eye and does the Wonderland Red AOE thing like she's a Dragon Ball character). Water-Delphina bribes Robyn with the (false?) promise that if she helps free the Kingdom of Bree

from King John's rule, they will reward her with a return trip to the Nexus (so she can put Cal's testicles where his eyes should be). There's kind of a Yojimbo quality to Robyn's process here, since she just picks a direction and starts walking until she meets either information or opposition and has to...respond, in her own inimitable fashion.

Five words: Šejić cover, literal straight fire.

Speaking of covers, a year after saving a Bree village from royal tax collectors in the previous issue, Robyn is now in her trilogy cover costume for the first time. No clue how she got something so overdesigned and elaborate by living in the forest for a year, but hey; costume! And everyone in Bree is calling her Robyn Hood ("that's not going to stick," she says...)! This issue is also where I start to recognize plot elements from Robin Hood adaptations I've seen before (the Disney animated one, Prince Of Thieves, Men In Tights, and the Russell Crowe one from 2010): the staff fight in the river with Little John (here testing and drawing out the legendary, elusive rebel without a shit to give, and making it subtly clear for the first time that Robyn has a thick Brooklyn accent—I can't take her seriously if I read her in a Harley Quinn voice, so nope to that forever), the announcement of King John's archery contest, and the introduction of the rest of the Merry Men of Sherewood (with whom she shares little connection, except maybe the beginnings of a romance with Will Scarlet?). But that's all preamble; the real action (unless you count the cutaway where Cal King's father rearranges his face for being a thoughtless, entitled, misogynistic rapist nepo-baby who never learned what consequences are) is to be saved for the next issue.

While Cal King (that's obviously short for Calvin, but you might remember from my Clockwork Orange review that it's also the Nadsat word for shit, which is perfect) smugly delivers a eulogy for Robyn at his valedictorian speech (which he got to do not because he earned the GPA, but because his rich, powerful father handed it to him) and gets another dressing-down from his dad, Robyn is still in the Mystic Kingdom of Bree, winning the archery contest (which is misrepresented because it's also a weird capture-the-flag racing thing and a swordfight) pretty handily despite King John putting his ringer Champion, Sir Guy of Gisbourne, in the contest, too. But, instead of killing him and escaping (we saw her one-on-five a group of knights at the beginning of this series, so we know she can—well; she could, before putting on an elaborately slutty archer costume with a cape),

she decides to spare him for the sequel and distract herself from imminent victory by monologuing to the citizenry until a weaker knight one-shots her with a punch in the face (is Robyn the villain here‽) and she winds up imprisoned...again!

The finale issue marks the first time in the trilogy where we see the Zenescope Digital Edition logo on covers, as well as the first appearances of Robyn's Nexus costume. It looks badass, functional (no cape!), and comparatively more comfortable than the corset and gloved radial guards she's been walking around in for the past two issues, and it's basically what her character design will look like for the indefinite future of her appearances once she starts wearing it in the issues themselves.

Which starts now. Kind of. Robyn is in the middle of being executed by firing squad at the moment, so that has to change first. Unfortunately, Little John is killed for aiding in her escape, and I'm suddenly reminded that what makes Robyn such a cool and interesting character from the beginning (but not original, because it's basically "the Dexter factor" of a moral sociopath doing the quiet part out loud through preventative violence and having a tragic origin to justify the catharsis of her actions) is also what makes everyone else in the story either a narrative device in service of her character development or a narrative device in service of future threat escalation in the story at large (which feels more like Zenescope's business model than Shand's writing, to be honest). Little John was given a complex personality for his brief appearance (that's Shand's writing style for sure), but then he's dead and the story doesn't stop to give him a breath of dignity unless you choose to linger on the Moment that panel is emphasizing. No one reacts or mourns or dedicates their Leeroy Jenkins charge in his honor. We're just moved on to Robyn torturing the king to death (making him run and crawl in public view while she cripples and kills him with arrows). And I get that King John is written to be more of a symbol than a character (a generic, selfish king more present in the consequences of his rule than as a person, meant to embody abuse of power and a certain kind of person Robyn takes issue with, rather than her direct nemesis), but as cathartic as his death is supposed to feel to the reader, I, like Robyn, felt nothing from it; like it was something the story had to quickly check off its list to get to what we really came for.

Robyn's whole M.O. thus far has been "I feel almost nothing and I don't care about anything, but if it gets in my way or reminds me of something that happened to me, I'll make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else so I can feel okay, except that I was probably born to never feel okay because I think my birth parents were evil, and making evil suffer feels emptily 'good,' so I'll keep doing that until I'm satisfied and live with the memories." Except maybe that Will Scarlet guy; there's maybe some good feelings there, so hopefully Gisbourne and the king's bratty son (who's kind of like if Vegeta was a punk-ass bitch human because he's now Prince Regent John IV, his kingdom is gone, and he has a tall sidekick) don't kill him out of revenge in a sequel.

Anyway, with Bree engulfed in the literal flames of rebellion,

Will upholds his end of the "be our symbol and I'll help you get home" bargain by introducing Robyn to Maid Marian, who once stumbled across the remains of the Provenance Necklace from the Quest Giant-Size and managed to reassemble it (meaning that during Robyn's eighteen-ish years of life, Sela’s seventy-five issue run as Guardian Of the Nexus and prisoner of Myst—which lasted centuries according to some earlier issues and Short Stories—and the Quest Giant-Size played out in their entirety; I'm going to wear out the "2" button on my landline from calling all the bullshit on the chronology here), so now Robyn can return to New York and exact her revenge on Shit King! ...later.

First she has to stalk him and his rape buddies (thank God for "tell, don't show" in that regard because aside from a few lines of dialogue, we only know Cal cut out her eye and left her to rot, not that he or his friends did...anything else to her) in an off-page timeskip, and one month later, Robyn is in her Nexus costume.

Over the next nineteen pages, Robyn takes sadistic, empty pleasure in maiming and crucifying Cal's friends, killing his father in front of him (which he takes with a grateful smile as an act of freedom in his favor), killing and maiming the cops who did nothing about what was done to her, and pinning Cal himself to a table and burning him alive (unbeknownst to Robyn, she was being watched by Gisbourne, Prince John, and a new character named Avelia—so, along with Acacia the Voodoo priestess and Alicia the Limbo Queen, that makes at least three dark-haired villainesses whose names start and end with A to keep track of now—who will be important in the sequels, and they revive and heal Cal so he can be the new threat next time). Meanwhile, after collapsing in tears of catharsis and relief that her journey of revenge is "over," Robyn returns to her philanthropic, thieving ways and leaves New York behind to find herself.

This is where the first Volume of Robyn Hood ends and there is no bonus content for it in either the Trade Paperback or the Omnibus version, but along with another ad for the now-defunct Zenescope app (like what was in Neverland: Hook), the Trade features two different ads for the Robyn Hood vs Red Riding Hood One-Shot:

I was conflicted over whether or not I would review it here because, while it follows directly from the events of this miniseries, Britney makes vague references to participating in events that I have yet to cover in Retrospective continuity (the Bad Girls miniseries and later Volumes of Myths & Legends, if my middle-aged memory serves me correctly), and the One-Shot was collected in Different Seasons Volume Four but not in any Robyn Hood Volumes.

Since I "like" fixing things, here's the review:

It may be pure nostalgia, but I consider Robyn Hood vs Red Riding Hood to be one of the best things Zenescope has ever done.

Feeling aimless after she "fought alongside the Guardian Of the Nexus to save the world," Britney Waters has taken it upon herself to dress like a hooded Oktoberfest barmaid and hunt down Highborn and Falseblood threats to the Earth, and because all news media can be trusted to accurately report on events in an unbiased fashion, she believes that Robyn (having gone off the grid after murdering her rich rapists and the corrupt police official who allowed them to operate free of consequence, and then robbing a bank to finance the poor) may be one of those threats.

Meanwhile to all of Britney's half-true speculation, Robyn is on a farm somewhere, shoveling horse cal and otherwise earning her keep under the alias of Willow (because Buffy is an awesome show and the foreshadowing of Robyn's later friendship with a lesbian witch is a subtle Retrospective gem). We see for the first time in Retrospective continuity that Britney's Falseblood power that let her control wolves at the end of her Myths & Legends arc also works on horses (and later, birds and—hilariously—an apartment full of cats, so probably, all animals) as she makes it run wild to test Robyn's reflexes before engaging in a prolonged, close-quarters fight that spans a park, a zoo, and several apartments. The misunderstanding at play (Cal's last name being King and the late John III being a king, so Robyn thinks Britney is his widowed mistress out for revenge—I mean, the costume does scream "wench from Myst"—and Britney thinks Robyn is admitting to another murder) is cliché and less funny than I found it on first read ten years ago, but the fact that Robyn did what Britney is targeting her for and only the context is missing is just subversive enough to make their dynamic interesting and nuanced. And the power progression as they fight and pursue each other (ultimately with Britney transforming into a pseudo-werewolf and Robyn having to lead her in front of a speeding bus to knock her out so they can talk without causing any more collateral damage) is paced out and used really well to keep the action compelling. I imagine (as the case was for me on first read back in the day) that the "two kick-ass blondes in hoodies stop fighting and have a heart-to-heart" (of sorts) "because their inner demons aren't all that different" ending was a disappointment for some readers who wanted more action. But even back then, I appreciated the writing of that final couple of pages as much as (no, more than) the fight that led up to it. Like I said, it's a great issue.

Speaking of "wanted," though, the digital standalone edition of the Robyn vs Red One-Shot (oh; by the way, Britney makes several references to having trained with Asian monks to help keep her inner wolf under control—probably associates of Shang—one of whom used to call her "Red," so that's a thing in-Universe) has this ad on the last page:

So I thought that was a pretty solid point of transition into covering the next miniseries, except that I also decided to include my original summary/review of Robyn Hood and the One-Shot here FROM June 8, 2014 (Cover Charge #3: Grimm Fairy Tales):

A child of one of the Dark One's followers grows up on Earth with a human family, thanks to Shang (Sela's mentor). She is a natural thief with a superhuman case of street smarts and a pistol for a mouth (this is a weird series, but please don't take that literally). Her smart mouth one day costs her an eye and whatever innocence remained inside her soul, but a sorceress from Myst draws Robyn back to the realm of her birth and sets her on a course that closely mirrors the traditional Robin Hood legend, save a few transdimensional plot twists and a heaping pile of bloody murder at Robyn's hands. The crossover with Red Riding Hood follows the events of the first Robyn Hood series as the two mistake each other for enemies and engage in a pedal-to-the-metal fight to near death that ends only when the two realize how similar their circumstances are. I'm half-glad they didn't decide to sit down and talk right away.

And while the transition flow is completely busted (you might say it's Omnibusted), I thought I'd work in some "today, I learned" and "today, I remembered" bits. First, today, I learned there was an unrelated Robyn Hood TV show from Canada that aired in 2023, and for only eight episodes in 2023, in part because media grifters and their acolytes review-bombed it for the reasons that such people endeavor to destroy such things (it's a female-led black drama with rap music from Canada). I have not seen it, I don't know if I will ever decide to see it because I know I am not the target demographic for it, and I have no opinion on its quality. I just know it exists, and now, so do you.

As for what I remembered today, there was a short, live-action promotional film for the I Love New York miniseries that aired in 2016 at New York Comic Con, and is now available in perpetuity on YouTube:

It looks its budget as a fan film-like of the time, but is an accurate, charming adaptation of the franchise and character that was a joy to watch and to learn it exists at all.

Now, let's continue to revisit the Origin of 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 in the Volume One review, I'll again be curating images from the Trilogy 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 own 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 monarchist idea 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 (but not kill them...all...yet) 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 for the character and her writer.

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.

You may (or may not) remember that I started out this third Volume of the Robyn Hood Trilogy a little disappointed in myself, because the purpose of said experience was to not only revisit Zenescope's comics from a nostalgic, comparative, and scholarly perspective, but to cover them in something approaching a canonical order. Had I not chosen a thematic approach to my January and February content (all of the Jungle Book miniseries together, all of the Robyn Hood miniseries together), I might have adhered to that a bit more closely, but that was not to be in the cards, on account of an Editor's Note I saw in the first issue of the Robyn Hood Trilogy's finale, subtitled: Legend.

Robyn Hood Volume Three

Legend

I'll get to that soon, but first, there's the matter of introducing the Trade Paperback itself.

As is often the case with spinoff Trades like this (the main Grimm Fairy Tales Volumes have always released with original main cover art, even the white background reprint editions), the front cover is the same as the first issue's A Cover, this one by Ken Lashley and Romulo Fajardo, Jr. The Credits and Table Of Contents background is cropped from the fourth issue's A Cover by Emilio Laiso. Pat Shand continues as writer (with a nice, trilogy-ending afterword from him on the very last page of both the Omnibus and Trade editions) and Larry Watts provides interior art yet again for a consistent visual style throughout the trilogy.
The only Robyn Hood Volume to have bonus material so far, Legend also gives us a sneak preview of Robyn's Ongoing series (that I will get to in time).

When we last saw Robyn "Hood" Locksley, Cal "Sheriff Of Nottingham" King had killed "the only person who ever understood me" right in front of her and literally booted her into the clutches of the NYPD. Well, if you're just reading the trilogy by itself, prepare for those stakes to have no immediate weight because it's now several months later, Robyn is back to her "maim white collar criminals and redistribute their wealth in ways that look cool in the moment but could get the new recipients killed later" schtick after being released from prison in a miniseries I haven't reviewed yet (this is where that Editor's Note about the Realm Knights miniseries comes in), and Maid Marian just healed Will in the timeskip so he's all good now (well, there's the secret that Will is alive because Marian made him into a bootleg Sheriff Of Nottingham by using Provenance shards that he has to replace on the regular like Game Gear batteries, so maybe not all good). Oh, and they're working with Guy Of Gisbourne now because seeing her man back from the dead after a third of a year in shock and mourning hasn't turned Robyn's worldview upside down enough. So in a case of "the enemy of my enemy is convenient at best," Robyn agrees to join them in returning to Myst (by her own choice, rather than being dragged there suddenly like the last two times) to put down Cal for good and dispell any notion that she would ever cooperate with the Horde.

Shand brings the banter, character-rich dialogue, and Capital-M Moments this issue, as we see Avelia has joined the rebels as well (even serving as Marian's magic teacher in the skip), Robyn and Gisbourne clash over battle strategy because he's a tactical asshole (mommy issues notwithstanding), and Will confesses his feelings for Robyn with one hell of a kiss. Unfortunately, the capital nature of that particular Moment doesn't get to last because shortly after, circumstances lead to Robyn learning that there are no more Provenance shards (even though Marian had a full bag in the previous issue) and Will's death is inevitable.

While Cal (being addressed by his Horde underlings and human subjects as "Sheriff King," which is on-the-nose to the point of hilarity) has random citizens killed for being needy and democratically presumptuous because his name and personality are both shit and he finds it amusing, this next issue begins in the wake of Gisbourne's cold, strategic assessment that Will Scarlet is literal dead weight, as Much the Miller's Son engages the dishonored knight in a visceral brawl that opens old emotional wounds for them both and ends with Gisbourne leaving the group and Much laying bloodied and fractionally conscious, unable to avenge his slain mentor and savior (Gisbourne put a dagger in Friar Tuck in the previous series). Avelia follows, as does Marian (promising to train further with the branded witch to find a way of saving Will's life permanently), leaving Robyn and Will to further explore their feelings and prepare for the battle ahead. Again, subtle but very powerful character work here, as Marian has an encounter with Delphina's water spirit (purifying her magic and directing her off the path of Avelia's dark necromancy—a possible hint to more of the story behind those servitude marks?), leaving Gisbourne and Avelia to hash out their differences after the witch saw him mourning at Friar Tuck's grave.

As much as I certainly want to get to Robyn beating the pink glow off of Sheriff-King King's smug dumpster fire of a face, I cannot sing the praises of this trilogy's character writing enough.

But then fuck this issue for cheaply playing with my emotions! The last preview page says "Robyn vs The Sheriff Of Nottingham. One lives. One dies." The title page and cover show Robyn mourning over Will's dead body. The issue opens with Will saying "I'm not gonna die, My Girl" (which is the title of a sad kids' movie from the 90s where a mortician's daughter sees her childhood crush get stung to death by bees; spoilers) and Marian shows up conveniently (I'm talking about the timing, not the writing, because we saw this established in the previous issue) to say, "guess what? Here's some magic I got from Delphina, and Will isn't going to die from his chest wound because he doesn't have one anymore." So of course, when Robyn, Marian, Much, Will, and Gisbourne have said their pieces to be at peace when they go to war (Robyn maybe squaring things with Gisbourne and definitely getting some more lovey-dovey time with Will—though she still can't bring herself to say the words because of her magically destined sociopathy, even though she wants to—Much and Will doing the medieval handshake thing that assholes use as a dominance gesture toward women, and Marian keeping her unrequited feelings for Robyn under wraps), Shit King the Sheriff-King shows up, all hopped up on Provenance energy like a walking magic bomb, to cook Gisbourne and rip the magic out of Will's chest before being dismembered and exploding anticlimactically as all rapists should.

I knew it was coming because I had read this before, but still, fuck this issue for playing with my emotions.

I didn't mention this before, but each issue ends with a title-drop for the next issue, and Robyn Hood Legend #3 calls this one "The Canonization," in reference to a quote from John Donne that appears on the last page. The dictionary defines canonization as the Roman Catholic admission of a dead person into sainthood, as well as admission of works into a literary collection identified as genuine. There is language of a religious connotation in the literary definition as well, though we now use canon to refer mostly to fictional continuities like horror movie franchises, comic books, video games, and anime (hence the toxic debate over Dragon Ball's many media incarnations and the "quality equals canon" mindset in some fandoms).

So, all of that to say that, although my feelings stand about the trilogy's penultimate issue being emotionally manipulative (and blatantly, unapologetically so), Pat Shand is brilliant once again, using the final exchange between Robyn and Will to both solidify her as the eponymous Legend (canonizing her exploits and final expression of love by the literary definition) and qualify him for sainthood in the hearts of the surviving Merry Men, the citizens of Nottingham, and his Girl (canonizing him by the religious definition).

I'm not crying; you're crying.

Apparently, being choke-lifted and cooked by nuclear Provenance magic is more survivable than having the essence of a dead oracle ripped out of a hole in your chest, because Gisbourne is still alive and his Freudian hate-boner lasted way longer than medically advisable. Like Robyn, I am very much sick of Gisbourne willfully avoiding every single out he is given and thinking he's the shit to end all shits (especially when we all know that exploded in the previous issue). He doesn't deserve honor, or a legendary death; he deserves to be his own undoing and get stabbed in the back, because, as Avelia told him at Delphina's cabin last time, legends are for those on the side of good, and true warriors move on from vengeance. Fitting, then, that Robyn once again defeats him handily and declares their beef-hatchet squashed and buried, and Avelia should appear from beyond the gutter (that's the comic book version of being out of frame) to impale him from behind, taking her revenge as a tragic villain and allowing Robyn to keep the legendary warrior status she has earned at great cost. Damn.

Unfortunately, not every overwhelming Horde works by Head Vampire logic, so even without Cal or Gisbourne or a numbered John to lead them, the Dark Horde (mostly comprised of red WoW orcs because all modern fantasy design sensibilities were founded by millennials, I guess) are still laying waste to Nottingham while Marian, Much, and Larry the fruit merchant (whom I spent the series calling "Floppy-Hatted Redneck Guy" because he looks like his name should be Cletus or something, and I consider him the Mole of Robyn Hood comics because he keeps popping up at random to endure misery; justice for Mole!) struggle to hold their ground. So after mourning briefly in the gutter, Robyn arrives, leveraging the "Child Of Darkness" card to get the Horde to leave Nottingham in her control "or suffer the wrath of pissing me off" (I'm paraphrasing), and it works. By the way, the "Child Of Darkness" thing will be a moving goal post of false starts and disappointments going forward (because prophecy), so look forward to not looking forward to that.
Anyway, the "real warriors move on" quote also informs Robyn's story for the rest of the issue, as she continues to mourn her lost Will (damn and praise Shand for another masterful use of the doubly thematic!), but finds new joy in life when...Marian cooks her the worst-looking breakfast of all time‽ So, yeah; the dead are best remembered as we remember them in our hearts, tragedy is molded into us (not healed) by time, and Marian moves in with Robyn as her sidekick in New York, where they use their vigilante skills to pay the bills and share the wealth.

As I said at the top, the Legend Trade and the Origin Trilogy Omnibus both end with a sneak preview of Robyn's Ongoing series, but for now, my coverage ends here.

I debated myself over whether or not I would talk about the abundance of ads to be found in the individual digital issues, but they are for titles too far off in the Retrospective to make note of at this time, and I want the series to breathe in your minds (if you are using this as a companion piece for your reading experience) because even with its few apparent flaws, Robyn Hood is perhaps Zenescope's best-written imprint ever.

Please stay chill and Stay Tuned by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leaving a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have feelings about, helping out my ad revenue as you read because vigilante activity doesn't pay the bills in real life, and following me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my pointed content.

86

Omnibuster,

Out.