GFT Retrospective #120: Grimm Universe #2 - Red Riding Hood

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Retrospectre.

We did it, Ticketholders!

As of the morning of Tuesday May 26, Just the Ticket has crossed the twenty-thousand-view threshold for the month.

I cannot thank you all enough for what you do for the traffic here, even on days when I can't entirely keep to schedule.

As for the next goalpost? Well, at the height of my anniversary year, I hit over twenty-one thousand, so twenty-two thousand seems nice and achievable. Being ambitious and optimistic, though, let's aim for twenty-five thousand views by the end of May. Plus Ultra, Ticketholders!

Now, let's continue what I started last week in the Eye Of the Storm review (my first single-issue Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective since last December), as the Grimm Universe series gets into Feature/One-Shot mode with an issue that's as much about its place in the Zenescope timeline as it is about character...because Pat Shand is the writer.

Grimm Universe #2

Featuring Red Riding Hood

As the credits page tells us in a blurb that's all but copied from the Eye Of the Storm preview page, this issue takes place after Britney's Myths & Legends Volume, and has her on the trail of a serial killer who proves to be...unexpectedly complicated. But there's kind of a Christopher Nolan-meets-M. Night Shyamalan thing going on with the issue's structure, as the events following Myths & Legends Volume One (Britney training with Ming—something she mentioned in the Robyn Hood crossover, and that was continued in Bad Girls—to hone her zoopathic powers and tame the monster within) are bookended by the present events as described. For much of the issue, Britney isn't even the focus (and when she is present, we only see her in silhouette or as a partial boot stepping into frame, as if we aren't supposed to know that the featured character, who is on the cover, and whom we have been told will be in this issue, is in this issue). Instead, our focus character is Alexander, a schlubby, insecure New Yorker trying to get back into the dating scene and be a good friend to his recently single (and domestically abused) neighbor. Unfortunately, Alexander is being followed by a mysterious man in Magnum, P.I./Max Tennyson Hawaiian shirt who is about to give him a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day by leaving a trail of bodies in his wake and pinning the killing spree on him. Or Alexander is a crazy-good actor and the two men are in on it together?

Well, yes and no, because Alexander is revealed to be a Norman Bates/Tyler Durden/Kevin Wendell Crumb-type case where the killer is an alternate Falseblood personality (or possibly a foreign entity possessing him?).

The Shand of it all comes when the killer gets the upper hand on Britney and causes her inner monster to surface, slashing Alexander's face in much the same way as Britney herself was attacked by the shifter that turned her. Neither multiple personality killers nor dark mirror villains are anything new (and at this point, what is anymore?), but the symbolism is pretty perfectly stated; not too subtly or too overtly.

Then comes the phone call. With Alexander reverted to his schlubby personality and Britney having caged the wolf within, she calls for help from...Sela?

Yeah, this doesn't just take place after Myths & Legends Volume One; it takes place after Bad Girls, too!

And the timeline stuff isn't over yet, but let's detour back to another point of discussion with Britney showing (before we know it’s her, even though we know it's her) that she can control rats. It's basically a "here's why the Piper sucked and our new, sexy character doesn't" moment (though later series involving Britney focus more on her superhuman physicality and forget the zoopathy altogether) and feels as such. But I mention the rats also as a lead-in to what has already been revealed to be an opposite case: Ming is better than Shang. He's a more competent fighter (as "shown" in Bad Girls) and a better mentor (as we can infer here). Yes, he still has the hands-off delegation quirk that made Shang so infuriating, but we actually see Ming training Britney and developing a bond with her before the "there's nothing more I can do, go figure yourself out" moment, and even that suggests Ming has some long-game knowledge because after Ming's newspaper leads her to the encounter with Alexander and that is resolved in the gutter by Sela, the issue ends with Britney seeing a headline about a certain runaway spree-killer from Queens. So maybe Ming knew what path Britney would decide to take and that it would lead her to Robyn?

But if Ming is that good, why resurrect Shang? No; let me rephrase that. Just, why resurrect Shang‽

Anyway, you might know that I've been using the Zenescope Entertainment Fandom Wiki for reading order, and one quirk of its design is that the chronology is listed in three side-by-side categories: Grimm Fairy Tales, Wonderland, and Other. So it's unclear without the context of reading things where a certain Wonderland or Other series (like Hook or Robyn Hood) takes place in the timeline. So having re-read this far, here's my thoughts on the order as it relates to Britney, Robyn, and Sela:

• Grimm Fairy Tales Volume One (Britney introduced in the first issue)
• Grimm Fairy Tales Volumes Nine & Ten (Sela trapped in Myst)
• Myths & Legends Volume One (Britney turned and recruited by Samantha)
• Dream Eater Saga and GFT Volumes Eleven and Twelve (After a...detour, Sela Returns to Earth)
• Bad Girls (Sela and Britney meet for the first time)
• The Summoning (Sela and Britney work together for the first time)
• Robyn Hood (Robyn's spree against the Kings makes the news)
• Grimm Universe (this issue)
• Robyn vs. Red (Best. Crossover. Ever.)

Great issue with efficient characterization, and the art is really expressive and dramatic.

Next week, we start June with an origin for the Goblin Queen, but first I'm closing out this week with some TBT '26 rap from the Soundtrack and a Godzilla requel that's Just the Ticket, so Stay Tuned for that 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 because feeding the beast is expensive, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see, receive the latest news on my content, and get me closer to surpassing myself.

55

Retrospectre,

Out.