Zenescope - Omnibusted #55: Myths & Legends Volume Four (Hansel & Gretel)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Omnibuster.

Now that we're sufficiently afflicted with the munchies after Monday's events, it's time to get lost in the woods and eat a magic candy house! And maybe get a little disappointed and uncomfortable with the contents of the Trade I'm reviewing today.

Now that I know about the Myths & Legends Omnibus on ComiXology, I'll be pulling assets from it, the Volume Four Trade (because, yes, we're jumping backward to the penultimate arc of the series from Volume Five to Volume Four, like I mentioned last week), and...other sources. But as I always do, let's first look at the original issue, which was included as one of the bonus materials for Volume Four.

GFT #3: Hansel & Gretel

This issue is very on-the-nose with its character names and framing scenario, which was generally the case with early Grimm Fairy Tales, though some issues got more creative with the derivations than we see here.

A brother and sister named Hank and Gina run away from home and “chance” upon a ride with Sela Mathers, who relates to them “some lame story about two stupid kids who run away from home.” The intro panels of the Hansel & Gretel story are almost identical to its frame, with the exception being a difference in time period (e.g.: dress, language, technology).
The story continues fairly true to the common knowledge version, with the twist being that the witch (or hag, depending on the regional telling) is named Sela. This seems to further confirm information from the two previous issues that Sela can send people into the fairy tales she tells (as the book did with Britney?), as well as enter the fairy tales herself and take a character’s form (as with the fairy godmother in Cinderella).
After the fairy tale, Sela invites the kids to crash at her place for the night, which they wisely decline. The last panel shows Sela looking pleased with their caution, which created all kinds of questions as to her morality and the issue-by-issue canonicity of the narrative because she wasn't a character until the second issue (where she was a villain) and appears to be morally neutral or good in this story.

We'll also see in the Myths & Legends sequel arc that her lesson of "family may suck sometimes, but the temptation of the unknown can be scarier" didn't entirely stick with Hank and Gina.

Myths & Legends Volume Four

Hansel & Gretel

I'll get to that in a minute (which may be somewhere between a literal sixty second period and the slang word for a really long time that I haven't heard for a minute, depending on your reading speed), but as I do these days, let's start with this sick Trade cover by Keu Cha (it's also the A Cover for Part 4/M&L #21) and the Table Of Contents background (the B Cover for Part 3, by Sheldon Goh and Juan Fernandez, cooled and cropped to a double spread). We see here that, in addition to the above-reviewed reprint of Grimm Fairy Tales #3, bonus materials include a preview of the first Robyn Hood issue (up through the flashback of Shang being the excellent mentor that my sarcasm is) and the first eleven pages of Sleepy Hollow #1, as well as ads for Godstorm (both of which I will get to in time) and the sequel to the non-GFT title, Fly (which I probably won't get to because I don't remember it being referenced in any titles of its era as being in-Universe media, but it got a sequel miniseries, so it may be worth a look anyway).

Fuck this first issue for being a trolly asshole and making me think that Hank and Gina Barker (yes, it's the reference you think it is), and their ghost hunter crew would be investigating Wonderland. Like, the introductory voice-over (such as comic books have things like that) puts bold emphasis on "Beyond" and uses the word, "wonder," three times in a single text box. The mansion where they're filming is the site of a mass-axe-murder committed by a man who heard voices coming from the mirrors in the house. And near the end of the issue, they discuss doing their next episode about the House Of Liddle (which burned down recently, so also fuck this issue for reminding me that the 2011 Wonderland Annual exists, remember to use protection when fucking comic books—and people! And other things, if you're into that!—and this also takes place after the 2012 Wonderland Annual because Gina mentions there are plans to build a new house on the Liddle property).

But after they debunk the mansion haunting and pitch their dailies to producers Tom and Gerald (yes, I'm serious), Hank gets a letter about material for a witchcraft documentary as we move into the next issue, crushing my hopes and speculations into a fine, red mist.

There are other things I took...issue with, like Hank and Gina's borderline incestuous dialogue, or the fact that after seeming to have learned the moral of their debut issue, they now make a career of seeking out terror and murder in strange buildings. But I like the setup of Gina being suggested to have Falseblood powers and wanting to prove to her brother that they're real, so let's see where this goes because aside from being disappointed by the cheap Wonderland bait, I don't remember anything else.

As a confessed pedant and grammar anus-retainus, I can confidently say that the number of errors on the preview page make my brain defecate nuclear waste onto my eyeballs, and the first-issue recap stating that Gina succeeded in summoning a real spirit is empirically false whether or not you have radioactive diarrhea in your eyes.

Now, we get some continuity with the original issue, as a flashback to its aftermath shows a younger Hank and Gina returning home to find it in flames and their parents burned to death by what Gina thinks (and we get to see) is some kind of demon.

In the present, there's not much to say except that Hank and Gina bicker about their past almost constantly, and their initial time in Plainville (which gives me strong Gatlin/Crystal Lake vibes) looking for "the Witch's Den" (because of that letter we don't know the contents of) is that part of a supernatural debunk horror movie where the idiot skeptics ignore all of the loud, violently insistent warning signs and do not leave immediately because skepticism, money, stupidity, plot necessity, and me repeating myself.

Speaking of me repeating myself, the crew of Urban Legends, Inc. (that's their company name for the purposes of the show they're filming, but I reviewed those movies, so shameless plug) are shooting a fake haunting and murder sequence in the house that the mysterious letter sent them to and the entire town of Plainville told them to stay the fuck away from, when Gina forgets her lines because of nostalgia, and guess what? That's right; brother and sister spend the entire issue bickering about their parents' death, the fire demon, and Gina's "fake" powers...again!

I mean, it also makes no sense to the continued success of their show to kayfabe murder their film crew because the moment any of them appears on camera again without some kind of undead plot to the episode, ULI is fucked, but the main problem (aside from the writers abandoning perfectly good brand integration for...this) is that the arc could have been tightened up by not spending two issues re-hashing the same, annoying character dynamic. I'd almost prefer the textually incestuous nature of what Part 1 gave us.

But then things take a hard left into The Boy Who Cried Wolf when "what's inside" Gina "woke her up," and the crew start dying horrifically for real, saving Hank (and the reveal of a very Zenescope, stock-looking cannibal-witch-ghost...although I must admit her claw-ring, and the dismemberment gore, look really cool) to be the mansel in distress.

This is Zenescope's seven-year celebration issue, folks! And this story arc sure has been "epic," hasn't it? Some might even say sarcastically so.

It turns out that the cannibal-witch-zombie was just a witch, betrayed by a luck of the draw and the homicidal town of Plainville, and given eternal life by the Dark One. Also, Hank and Gina both have powers that are stronger together, and when they "kill" the witch (well-deserved, because her speech pattern is annoying and her backstory doesn't make sense because of it, dearie, oh yes, oh no) and the town turns on them, Malec arrives and shows he can be brutally heroic when he wants to (even if it's all an act of social warfare to replace one set of Pawns with another), saving the now-evil Wonder Twins from certain death so they can be temporarily semi-relevant until otherwise decided.

Strap a Timepiece to my belt because I'm running late and this was a waist of time. There is a Gretel series that debuted after I stopped trying to stay current with GFT (I think it follows the Myst character from the fairytale instead of continuing Gina's narrative), but aside from a few minor uses of Hank and Gina in the near future that render them disposable and irrelevant, this is it. Stick a fork in me.

And please, Stay Tuned and remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment something at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can be one of the rich people who isn't allegedly a cannibal, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my witch-slaying content.

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Omnibuster,

Nice.