Zenescope - Omnibusted #58: Myths & Legends - The Summoning

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Omnibuster.

I hope everyone had a happy Mother's Day on Sunday because I did (even though I didn't make space to mention it in Monday's post). Most of the gifting was already taken care of before the big day (onions, tomato, pepper, mint, and fennel plants for our above-ground garden), which left the focus on food, so I made breakfast (my specialty meal of eggs, bacon, fruit, and the best waffles I've made or eaten since the last time I made waffles) and some store-bought shrimp and onion rings for lunch so she wouldn't have to cook...much. A fairly stress-free day, and I'm happy she enjoyed it.

The question now is whether or not I will enjoy the final arc of Myths & Legends (until Zenescope brought the branding back for quarterly One-Shots in the 2020s).

Grimm Fairy Tales - Myths & Legends:

The Summoning

As a reminder, Myths & Legends is a long, limited series that serves a two-fold purpose (at minimum) of being both a Samantha Darren-led title (in apology for the prematurely canceled Grimm Tales ongoing series we never got because Samantha is a lesser Sela) and a pseudo-anthology sequel series to some of Grimm Fairy Tales' most popular early issues, with its story arcs thus far collected as follows:

• Volume One collected the first five issues (the Red Riding Hood sequel).
• Issues six and seven (shut up!) were collected in separate Volumes of The Dream Eater Saga.
• Volume Two collected issues eight through eleven (The Little Mermaid sequel).
• Volume Three collected issues twelve through fifteen (the Beauty & The Beast sequel).
• The Gathering (issues sixteen and seventeen—also shut up!) was collected in Volume Five with today's story arc.
• Volume Four collected issues eighteen to twenty-one (the Hansel & Gretel sequel, but not the funny, male stripper one).

Aside from its almost Different Seasons-esque level of compilation confusion, the ComiXology edition of Volume Five is glitched to show the Stjepan Šejić cover for M&L #16 instead of the Volume's actual cover (which is re-used from the A Cover for M&L #22—the beginning of today's Summoning arc—by Giuseppe Cafaro and Ula Moś). It also features a low production effort mistake, wherein a chapter title version of the sixteenth issue's cover (and only the sixteenth) is included. It doesn't appear as either bonus material at the end of the ComiXology Trade, or in its proper place in scanned versions, though I can assume this is not the case with physical editions, but ComiXology has a Myths & Legends Omnibus compilation of all five Volumes (with their issues in Volume order rather than how they are individually numbered, so it still takes some jumping around to read coherently, if that makes sense) with chapter title pages for each issue, so problem solved by parts, I guess?

Whatever the case, the sixteenth issue's B Cover (by Robert Atkins and Sanju Nivangune) was used for the fifth Volume's Table Of Contents background, and there is no bonus material to consider in any version.

Comic book lore can be like using motorcycle assembly instructions to put a bike together...with Lego bricks. You might end up with something of the vaguely correct shape and the learning process might be fun, but the mix of different creators leads to you learning about an excess of confusing parts that you don't know where, or if, they really belong.

For a bit of creative insight, my juvenile-at-42 mind originally wanted to open with "comic book lore sucks like a hooker with a vacuum cleaner," and leave it at that. When I switched to the bicycle analogy, I wasn't even going to bring it up. But as I was writing the bicycle analogy, I realized just how much of it could apply to both. And how "analogy" is one letter and a space away from "anal orgy." So slip in the analogy of your choice and have fun, I guess?

As for the lore itself, Zenescope is back to "the Keepers had the Jabberwocky grow up in Wonderland but he was too evil to purify and ended up corrupting the Realm instead," rather than their original claim of the Dark One appointing him as a proxy like with Pan. Things begin with the Dark One having a flashback to when he was a Mystic human barbarian, leading the original Horde and fighting with his dissenter rival, Shang. When Shang Sparta-kicks Malec into a volcano that the Horde use for sacrifices, the Keepers of Corruption and Hate show up because they're afraid Malec's influence on the volcano and its accumulation of virgin soul energy will birth something as evil as the Jabberwocky. So they pour all of the energy they're afraid of into Malec and resurrect him as a demon because that makes sense. We also see later that the Innocent watched Drago Mathers fall to his death because of Keeper rules and evil triumphing when good men do nothing (or the long-winded, Martin Sheen approximation thereof) and that also makes sense. Take two sarcasm and don't call me Shirley, because the Keepers suck worse than a hooker with a vacuum cleaner. See? We're coming full-circle!

Anyway, back in the present, the Dark One is tired of failure (and he's admitting to failure now! That's growth, people!), and has assembled Cindy (who doesn't talk like Cindy), and the For Some Reason Club of Hank, Gina, and Patricia

(the latter of whom required an Editor's Note to remind us that she is the mother from The Juniper Tree issue and an exposition dump to tell us that she has been training her "arboreal talents" for months and her daughter is dead) to recover the pieces of the Sunstone Of Ra. So...let me get this straight; the villain who is tired of failure is teaming a well-trained chlorokinetic with an untested pyrokinetic.

A slightly better (but still Tony Stark unapproved) plan is Baba Yaga (whose all-seeing oracle powers only work as the plot demands, so if her origins weren't so compelling, she would have been dropped hard like the Pied Piper) working together with the Beast (whom she couldn't control because his toxic masculinity breaks time or something), Venus (who literally stabbed two of their associates in the back, causing the failure of the Bad Girls revenge scheme), and Esmeralda (who has a grudge against Venus, because Venus, for turning her into an octopus monster out of jealousy).

The battle between Venus and Esmeralda...'s pets and sidekicks begins and ends almost instantly, so there's pretty much no point to it aside from the accompanying expository narration (narexposiation?) about how Erica and the Beast aren't that different and maybe they'd be friends or a functioning toxic couple if they weren't being used by two women who hate each other (except that Edward is a stuck-up, controlling, homicidally violent rage monster who's too angry to settle down with anyone, but whatever).

Meanwhile to the villains not getting along as they plot to kidnap the Innocent for some reason, Samantha reminds us that she is a lesser Sela by drowning in pity over her repeated failures throughout Myths & Legends and the Dream Eater Saga, and calling Sela for help due to her experience as a Guardian Of the Nexus (even though Sela didn't know she was the Guardian until she came back from the dead and Shang dumped all of that pressure on her after Samantha had already gone through actual training for the position and so is more prepared and qualified than Sela—who spent centuries watching her family and love interests die, being brainwashed into villainy on a recurring basis, and having no less than two psychological thriller bullshit comas while evil triumphed).

Thankfully (or however adverbs work when someone important arrives too late to stop the bad thing from happening), Sela doesn't answer the call alone. She brought along Britney Waters (now with a less exhibitionist costume than we saw her wearing in Bad Girls, but similar in design aesthetic), and Marcus Jenkins!

In case you blinked seventy-plus issues of Grimm Fairy Tales ago, Marcus was the surviving Gulf War buddy of David from Three Billy Goats Gruff. Thanks for rescuing that random filmmaker, I guess....

The art style is shit, the narration is rote, predictable, tagline garbage, and there's a moment where Sela and Samantha turn on each other for no explained reason. But I'll be damned if the composition isn't amazing, and there's enough character meat to chew on in general that a little lapse in writing quality can be forgiven (this arc hasn't exactly been a Shakespearean masterpiece for the last two issues, so I'm giving relative praise where it's duly earned).

I mean, the silhouettes of the villainesses as they stand ready to awaken Helios (granted, bringing a Sea Witch and a Siren to an eternal flame in the middle of a Turkmenistani desert to free a Titan from the sun whose magic can potentially incinerate the Earth isn't exactly a Tony Stark-approved plan, but...), Erica's shift into Siren form, Baba Yaga firing a blast through Morrigan's skeletal body, Hank's excessively brutal death, the drama, expressiveness, and dynamic posing in absolutely every panel!

And then there's Gina pondering that Mitchell and Webb meme,

the Venus-related subtext of Sela and Esmeralda's brief combat exchange, the possibility that Britney could use her powers on the Beast (except for the fact that his rage defies all...everything), the complex dynamics between Sela, Samantha, and Cindy (who sounds like Cindy again), the implications of Helios' return and sensing of "Her" (his deceased lover, not the ScarJo AI), and, oh yeah; I fucking called it because Venus betrayed everyone again and gave the completed Sunstone to the Dark One!

Fortunately (but predictably), villains always make the mistake of thinking that a sealing MacGuffin can double as a control MacGuffin when it doesn't, and when the previously sealed, uncontrollable threat is a literal god.

Also fortunately, Gina being a female pyrokinetic who can survive Helios' heat does provide a means of controlling him because he's a weak-minded simp for literally naked, literally hot women. This twist is so stupidly simple that it's brilliant.

Unfortunately, watching her parents burn to death (in a fire she most likely caused) and her brother get curb-stomped by the Dark One has turned Gina into a pyromaniacal nihilist.

So now the secret existence of Highborns and Falsebloods on Earth is secret no more because Helios and Gina start their holocaust (before it was capitalized in the 1970s and used to refer to a nearly successful attempted systemic genocide during World War II that is currently being denied by twisted assholes on the internet, "holocaust" appropriately originated from Greek words meaning "whole" and "burned," then describing an immolated sacrificial offering, usually animal or human) with the Great Wall Of China (the only landmark visible from space with the naked eye).

In the couple's rampage, Venus' face is burned (which will become the least of her worries in the not-too-distant future), the Dark One's forces are...forced to retreat, and Baba Yaga and Esmeralda are leveraged into an alliance of convenience with Sela's group, who use the gem from the now-shattered Sunstone Of Ra to nerf Helios' powers.

The story proper ends with Baba Yaga retreating with the Nexus' hottest couple (another anticlimactic ending. Yay.) and our heroes planning to form a Nexus equivalent to the Council. Realm Knights: coming eventually to a Zenescope - Omnibusted near you!

But there are also three Epilogues to consider:

1. As Patricia leaves the Dark One's home to tend to personal matters, we get more potential confirmation that the Innocent is that part of Baba Yaga she sacrificed to the Book Of the Lost to begin her path of revenge (she looks like a young Baba, has precognitive abilities—telling the Dark One that he will die to either Baba Yaga or Sela, but a fate worse than death awaits everyone else—and delights in making Malec squirm).
2. While visiting her daughter's grave, Patricia (last name revealed here as Braddock) falls to a tactical hit squad. I expected there to be a follow-up where Patricia's blood leeched into Carrie's grave (yes, the plant psychic has a dead daughter named Carrie) and brought her back to life. But the anti-Highborn death squad concept will return in the distant future as part of a major event.
3. One of the Keepers resurrects Shang. Yay.

This is far from the worst story arc Zenescope has put forth so far. Between the flaws (the sin-fugly art style, the nothing supporting characters, the stupid-by-necessity writing, almost everything involving the Keepers, the non-ending,...), there was enough effort and brilliance on display to balance things out to just about average. I suppose the takeaway here is the future implications, if not the reminders of where certain characters stand with each other, and I can appreciate that for what I can remember is to come.

But taking Myths & Legends as a whole, I think my old Cover Charge Quickie sums it up best:

It all started out so well. Samantha helps series starter Dr. Britney Walters (a.k.a. Red Riding Hood) and her patients face down a creature that is somewhere between a shapeshifter, a werewolf, and a wendigo. Britney is turned, but she still has a chance. Then Samantha must align herself with Baba Yaga and the Pied Piper against the magic-consuming Dream Eater for two issues before losing the Little Mermaid to Ursula, losing the Beast to Venus and a long road of bloody vengeance for his brother's suicide, losing Jenna (the Beast's target) to a supernatural flood of contagious rage, losing Hansel & Gretel to the Dark One, finding out that there is an unstoppable fire god trapped in the sun, and unsuccessfully thwarting the release of said god. Drawn out disappointment after drawn out disappointment here, not enough Samantha, and way too many pitiful sidekicks (the mother from The Juniper Tree has plant-control powers. Miniscule yay. The soldier from Three Billy Goats Gruff talks a little and has a big mace. Roosevelt is not amused. The Innocent knows everything and provides as little help as possible. Oh, and she almost dies, too. At least Sela's mentor is back from the dead and there's a chance the daughter from The Juniper Tree will be resurrected with her mother's blood). Overall, meh.

While I cope with the realization that Past Me thought Shang was worth a fractionally irrational shifudamn, please Stay Tuned for another HeroMachine TBT '26 and the Goj-Year-ra debut of Mechagodzilla. I will keep trying to pass ten thousand views a month (thank you for continuing to be awesome by the daily thousands!), so please 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 because sunblock 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 that goal.

61

Omnibuster,

Out.