Zenescope - Omnibusted #59: Grimm Universe

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Omnibuster.

As of this writing, Just the Ticket has surpassed my monthly goal of ten thousand views for the second month in a row. I will have also been on stay-cation for five days by the time this publishes, watched and drafted a review of Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II, and hopefully be done bingeing both seasons of Frieren so I can update that review. To keep things chill, this will be an edited compilation of the Grimm Universe Trade Paperback, plus a couple of yearly bonuses that may or may not be relevant.

Grimm Universe Volume One

The first thing you'll probably notice is the labeling of this collection of One-Shots as Volume One, possibly hinting that there was supposed to be a Volume Two at some point that was canceled. Like Myths & Legends, though, the Grimm Universe branding would be revived at the beginning of the decade for quarterly specials.

I said in my "Angel & Gods" post that I would talk about the Trade in "detail," so...let's do that here. The cover is re-used from the Grimm Universe #4 (featuring the Dark One, duh) B Cover by Marat Mychaels and Sanju Nivangune, the Table Of Contents background is a panel from that same issue (hard to search out because this series loves to use "KRAAK!" as an onomatopoeia) by Matias Bergara and Francesca Zambon. The bonus content is also Dark One-related, as it's the zero issue of the Dream Eater Saga, which is understandable because his impact (becoming the object of Baba Yaga's revenge) is larger than his page count there (three out of eleven), and it makes decent marketing sense to grow the readership, but some new bonus content would have been nice, too. I will always miss the early days of Zenescope doing Short Stories for their Trades....

Grimm Fairy Tales Annual #5 (2012)

Cover Charge Quickie: "Focus[es] on the machinations of Venus, Zeus, Neptune, Hades, and Ares. Prequel to the Angel One-Shot and the Godstorm mini-series."

Yeah; that's all I had to say about it, apparently.

So far as I could tell, this Annual wasn't collected anywhere, so besides the extraneous ads that would appear in a physical edition or a scan thereof (or alternate covers with decent resolution), there's nothing special you'd be missing out on by sticking with ComiXology or a similar digital version. But if you choose not to read the issue at all, just know you're missing out on more of Pat Shand's writing.

The timing of this issue is kind of in question because the opening dialogue between Venus and Ares seems to contradict their established relationship as introduced in The Grateful Beasts (where he helped kidnap Ilys for her), suggesting their conversation here might predate those events. It might also be bad writing that Venus seems to be more competent in the art of war than the literal god of that concept, but I choose to err on the side of intentional irony. It's a pretty clever throughline for the issue that Zenescope's take the Greco-Roman deities is a dichotomy of immortality and growth, like, godhood was their literal Greek Life as a bunch of emotional, debauched, edgelord assholes who tortured their pledges for their own amusement, slept around, and got drunk. Now that the world has moved on from "the old ways," most of them have grown up, assimilated, realized they've gotten socially or physically rusty, and learned to look for the small wonders of Nexus living. I like that Ares is a washed-up, vicarious war jock. I like that Neptune is a beach bum who collects shells and talks to birds. I like that Zeus' canonical promiscuity and infidelity have matured into the plot of Delivery Man. And I like that Hades is a cocky goth with a heart of gold even though Venus shackled him to a giant rock in Tartarus because she doesn't have an original thought in her head. Seriously, what Zenescope (and Shand, specifically, because he pretty much had creative control of the street-level side of the Grimm Universe from 2014 on) does with Hades down the line is some of my favorite character development that they've ever done. Emphatic punctuation!

And then there's Venus, for whom too much is never enough, and everything she's put together in her life in the Nexus (a fashion empire, an adoring fanbase, her own prep school, a loving daughter, an endless supply of men to fuck to death without opposition, etc.) is just a means to achieving her own personal M. Bison meme

because she's the only immortal (well, I guess "eternal" would be the more correct term, because she can be killed, as we'll see in the near future) who hasn't yet grown out of her title being her chief character trait and "fatal flaw" (I'm really disappointed Ares didn't make an Achilles' heel reference there).

As an epilogue to Venus using various tactics to gain power and allies in an as-yet-unspecified war to reclaim Earth (and the prime authority of her eternal youth when she was basically Cindy with a brain and sex powers), the 2012 Annual switches to the Realm of...Epilogue (that's not what it's really called; I just decided to call it that because of a pedantic production goof in the Dream Eater Saga, and it kind of fits), where the Keepers are debating over whether to interfere against their own code and save humanity from the actions of a slutty, conservative warmonger (so, Donald Trump with boobs), or let the gods burn everything to the ground. There isn't anything of note or interest about this last section of the Annual, and the Keepers suck, so let's move on to....

Grimm Fairy Tales

Angel: One-Shot

Grimm Universe #0

Cover Charge Quickie: "I wasn't sure what to expect from this, but it didn't have that "gotta read it!" factor that even The Library had going for it. A decent set-up for the Unleashed cycle."

Heather Angelos (so, even if you haven't read the issue before, it's obvious she's going to be Angel, right?) is a prosecutor in a class-action suit against a chemical plant CEO who looks like Richard Nixon with dialogue that begs to be read in a stereotypical mafioso voice. After winning her case by badgering him into hostility on the stand and assaulting him (granted, it was in self-defense, but does it count as self-defense if the attacker was provoked?) without suffering any state or federal repercussions (and being forced by opposing council into promoting the health benefits of the Nintendo Wii), Heather takes care of the remaining minutiae off-panel before being flown to Greece to meet with Gregor Brontios (Zeus' Nexus alias, because Greek and thunder).

Meanwhile, in the Greek Parliament (where everyone is at each other's throats over who is responsible for the 2009-2018—and beyond, arguably—financial crisis), Ares shows up to crush skulls, snap necks, and declare himself king (because Venus "gave" him Greece as a loyalty bonus in the 2012 Annual).

Heather's meeting with Zeus and reawakening of her past memories also opens up quite the can-basket of worm-spiders for any reader (like me) who is brave enough to look into all the references in her backstory. First, Heather is revealed to be Hecate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft who stole from Zeus and drove humanity to the brink of pagan damnation...but also acted as a therapeutic companion to Demeter, suggesting she seek advice from Helios (who is a tortured soul trapped in the sun in Zenescope’s mythology) when Persephone is bound to Hades. Because Hecate prevented Demeter from burying the world in an apocalyptic winter and accompanied Persephone on her yearly journeys to and from the underworld, she became a more favored (but still minor as the Olympian hierarchy goes) goddess. In some obscure classical writings, Hecate is equated with Angelos (a daughter of Zeus and Hera, associated with the underworld, and the inspiration for Heather's last name here), and in later writings as "Mother of Angels." In addition to the classical Hecate and Angelos references, Zeus here throws in that Heather was also known as Phospherous (who was a male deity in classical mythology—but why gender-shame in 2026, right?—the namesake of the similarly spelled periodic element, and because his name means light-bringer, he was considered the Greek parallel to Lucifer, so Heather's whole convoluted evil angel backstory comes full-circle to bite itself on the ass and keep chewing until it tastes corn).

So, yeah; I've made a point in the past of noting that as the Grimm Universe developed, Zenescope heroines started to fall into the mold of "gender-flipped and/or sexy, legally distinct Avengers/Justice League archetype." Now that she has her Realm Color powers, Sela Mathers is Wonder Woman. Robyn Hood is Green Arrow/Hawkeye. Britney Waters is part Wolverine, part Beast Boy, part Squirrel Girl. And with her convoluted, reincarnated goddess with repressed memories backstory, wings, and magical bludgeon, Heather Angelos is Zenescope's Hawkgirl. And she looks like a Victoria's Secret runway model in the low-detail panels, so while the action looks cool, it's hard to take "what if Heidi Klum was Thor?" seriously...but Heather acknowledges it later, so it's okay?

But we're not done with the issue (or the mythology references) yet, because now Heather has to stop Ares and his (or did he borrow it from Venus?) army of jet-slaying harpies and tank-crushing, cannibalistic Laestrygonians (who are much smaller here than classically described—mountain height—and originally appeared in Homer's Odyssey, where they used guerrilla tactics to sink all but one ship in Odysseus' fleet of twelve).

Also, I forgot to mention this above, but in the Annual, Venus says that in addition to her conventional Greek and Roman names, she was once known as Cytherea (an epithet of Aphrodite, based on the name of the island where she supposedly came ashore—take that however you wish, because sometimes, sea foam isn't just sea foam—after her birth).

Anyway, Heather manages to turn the tide (puns!) in the battle against Ares' army and stalemate the war god himself before sealing him in the underworld (where Hades is chained up, so there's probably a short-lived teamup of War and Death coming, but I don't remember), accompanied by some more, "humans suck, so why fight for their survival when we could crush them and rule over what's left?" dialogue from him that feels incredibly stale by this point in our actual history (where even the leader of my Democratic haven of a country is a warmongering piece of shit with alleged ties to a network of depraved elites, to put it in the tamest, least unfounded terms possible).

The One-Shot ends with Zeus offering his assistance to Heather as it's suggested that she will be involved in the battle against the Flesh Reavers (the Wrath beasts that were awakened in the Limbo arc) in Bad Girls and beyond.

That suggestion went unfulfilled, of course, as did my original intention to cover Grimm Universe #1 in my Angel & Gods post because Heather is on the cover, but a quick skim revealed references to Bad Girls and the final arc of Myths & Legends, so I saved it and the rest of the Grimm Universe coverage for another day.

Grimm Universe #1

Eye Of the Storm

You might notice there was a distinct lack of Heather Angelos in Bad Girls after her One-Shot ended by teasing that.

She's in this issue, but not for very long despite being on every cover, because the story is more about the complicated relationship between Neptune and Hades, with Heather getting caught in the middle for a few pages...and it's about Malec getting low-diffed by a mysterious new villain.

The Dark One gets an unexpected visitor (after Sela and the Innocent crashed his "stronghold" quite easily in The Return and Bad Girls, respectively, this makes Tic-Tac-Toe, and he wins a free Arby's Beef & Cheddar, which won't make a difference because he's about to royally shit himself anyway) who wants to join the Horde, but has a few points of curiosity he needs satisfied first. Things like, why the Guardian Of the Nexus is a Star Wars meme instead of...dead,

and why the all-powerful Dark One doesn't know that there is a god who wants to destroy the world. If we stop here, that choice of words invites a host of questions about Malec's involvement in The Summoning (which he had been aware of since at least the events of The Gathering), but thankfully, a turn of the page gives us context that the world-ending deity is Neptune, not Helios.

In flashback, we see the Olympians using the previously emptied (except for Hope, presumably) Pandora's Box to seal away "[their] nightmares" (primordial monstrosities that predate them, as well as cursed beasts and genetic aberrations of their own making) and lock it in the now-defunct Tartarus to be guarded by Cerberus, who just looks like the goodest good boy ever, like if Scooby-Doo had three heads. I don't like dogs, and dogs don't like me, but Cerbie is can be adorable.

Having spent centuries mourning the death of his love, Salicia (whom I think is meant to be the Roman goddess of saltwater, Salacia, but the spelling was changed for some reason), Neptune has fittingly run out of tears and turned nihilist, retrieving Pandora's Box and unleashing Scylla and Charybdis (the original "rock and a hard place") upon the world so he can let everything be destroyed and exist in...a kind of peace before he is consumed as well.

After a brief fight where Heather takes on Scylla and Neptune back-to-back, the sea god flashes back to Salicia's death during an ancient conflict at the hands of a man named Zagreus. And if you thought Hecate was convoluted, hold my wine because Zagreus is so obscure that his origins require a Maury Povich paternity/maternity reveal episode to figure him out and scholars have had such a hard time with translation and interpretation that he almost isn't a deity of his own (his name suggests that he is the "god of pitfalls," but that's about it). The most common myth about Zagreus has him as the son of Zeus (doing his shapeshifting bestiality man-whore thing) and Persephone, heir to the throne of the Universe, until Hera got jealous (because goddesses be jealous like women be shoppin', I guess) and tricked the Titans into dismembering and eating him (except for his heart—in some versions, it's his penis). Zeus later comes into possession of Zagreus' remains and reincarnates him through Semele in a new body...and that myth is actually about Dionysus (and extremely similar to a myth about the Egyptian god Osiris) because Zagreus is too archaic to be a god of his own. On top of that, Zagreus has been written of as being Hades and being the son of Hades (this latter being adapted into the Hades video games) by several different poets, scholars, and philosophers. And because I hate myself sometimes and don't care how little time I have to get my posts ready these days, I also went looking for Zagreus' Roman equivalent, which is how I learned that the Roman plebians invented their own distaff counterculture deity (Liber [Pater]/Libera) so they could worship freedom by getting drunk (Liber is the origin of both "liberty" and "libation") and having sex...so naturally, the freedom god was later written to just be Baccus (the Roman equivalent of Dionysus).

Zagreus is so obscure that none of his lore could be said to have been any basis of inspiration for what Zenescope's version of the character is or does here. The only hint to his inspirations from the Zenescope side is that he calls Salicia his aunt before killing her, suggesting that he is either Apollo or Achilles.

But knowing what I do from Future Knowledge (plus there's an Editor's Note referencing the Godstorm miniseries—hence this issue's title—which was releasing concurrently with Grimm Universe), Zagreus is also Hercules. Jesus fucking snakes; I need a lethal dose of Advil so I can take bets on whether my migraine or the pain meds will kill me faster. 

The only other thing of note that came out of my...fun...research is that Zeus banished the Titans to Tartarus for cannibalizing his son, providing possible context for the gods boxing up their nightmares in Zenescope’s mythology. I also searched for any human/god wars in Greek mythology, and Google spat out collaborative efforts like the Gigantomachia (the name inspiration for the My Hero Academia Villain, and it's a war between the Olympians and the giants where Hercules got involved) and petty proxy conflicts like the Trojan War (which involved Achilles), but what caught my attention was the Flood Of Deucalion because of something Neptune says in the issue.

The suggestion here to me is that after the battle that cost Neptune his lover (wife?), Zeus helped him flood the Earth (because every religion has a flood story), with the only survivors being Deucalion (the name inspiration for Dean Koontz's take on Frankenstein's monster) and Pyrrha (hence "Pyrrhic victory," and the namesake of RWBY's most tragic, beloved, badass, and sexy character).

Okay; enough with Wikipedia and Google for now.

Perhaps remembering the flood (we don't see it in the comic, but it's an easy assumption for a mythology nerd like me), Neptune comes to the conclusion that maybe unleashing a biblically accurate, Lovecraftian sea-drinker to destroy the world wasn't the best way to cope with his feelings, and so frees Hades to help him re-seal Scylla and Charybdis inside Pandora's Box (which Hades keeps for reasons I can't remember) because Hades is the god of monsters (ironically, a trait that was borrowed from a Zagreus myth).

Back in the framing scenario, the unseen villain forces Malec out of his demon form and takes a liking to the name, "The Being," as a final text box warns that a shadow is about to fall on the Grimm Universe.

This issue was...very blue. Fitting, given Neptune's prominent role in the story, but it led to a feeling of visual apathy (more irony, because it's a good tactic to get us to sympathize with Neptune) that I remember made me read in a state of bored detachment the first time around. Now, I can appreciate the depth of character here (Pat Shand is masterful at slow, subtle, efficient writing like that), and as a more mature reader, I can understand the visual theming at play (the past looking bright and heavily saturated in contrast despite the ensuing tragedy, and Malec's sections having a dramatic horror feel to them, for example). But having so much to say about an issue with very little to it (I could probably summarize it with sentences countable on one hand) didn't feel worth the headache that was researching Zagreus.

 The Eye Of the Storm review (above) was my first single-issue Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective since the last time I went down a rabbbit hole, and Greco-Roman deity research was the kind of mad dive that makes my head hurt even though I love mythology. So after an annual and two One-Shots of that, I was relieved to remind myself where else the Grimm Universe series had gone, with an issue that's as much about its place in the Zenescope timeline as it is about character...because Pat Shand wrote it, too.

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 are 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 recruited by Samantha after being turned)
• Dream Eater Saga and GFT Volumes Eleven and Twelve (After a...detour, Sela Returns to Earth)
• The Lockdown (Sela in prison)
• 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. Perhaps not ideal as an entry point to Zenescope comics because it relies on context at times, but worth reading.

Grimm Universe is kind of a One-Shot/Origin Of the Bi-Month series from Britney onward, so next came an origin for the Goblin Queen.

Grimm Universe #3

Featuring Goblin Queen

Not that I'm not going to do the same thing here, but I almost wish the editors had just copied the preview text again because the credits page this issue overtly spoils the content and the twist of the story we're about to read.

Granted, there isn't really much to talk about from my perspective aside from a few name references. But I'll do my best as I always do.

At an unspecified time in the past (because Venus killed the Goblin Queen in Bad Girls), the village of Yorick (alas, I knew him, the dead fool) has been ravaged by goblins (where's the Slayer when we need him?), with only one scrappy, female survivor whose skill and demeanor prompt the Goblin Queen into a flashback.

In the kingdom of Agentess (the name of which means a female agent, as in, a woman who acts in the interests of another, so it's a kingdom nominnally destined to be someone's bitch), focus shifts to a girl named Olivia, daughter of the Captain of the King's Guard, who hopes to join their ranks one day (not out of nepotism like her lazy, incompetent older brothers, but through her actual skill) despite Myst's medieval levels of chauvinism and misogyny to the contrary.

Most interesting here, aside from Zenescope doing the girl-boss prequel concept really well so far (especially with Belinda, Robyn, Britney, and Tiger Lily), is that Olivia's childhood friend is a brown-haired boy named Thomas. Whether this is meant to be a "small world" case of it being Sela's brother (he is treated as mildly important later, as if there was unfulfilled intent to follow up his appearance here in the future), or if Zenescope were just reusing common white guy names again, but like I say, it's fun to notice these things sometimes.

Whatever the case may be with this Thomas, the Agentess Kingdom is soon attacked by goblins because Olivia's brothers had to say a Bubsy,

and they die thinking they have to protect her instead of fulfilling their knightly duty to the Kingdom because of plot convenience and medieval chauvinism. I appreciate that the issue doesn't frame their deaths as being her fault (like, she didn't demand protection or do something stupid to get in their way while proving herself; they were just terrible knights who got overwhelmed in a relatively confined space), and the issue from then on follows an imprisoned Olivia as she plots her revenge against the goblins. Good setup lore here, as Olivia exchanges words with an unnamed hag who reveals the nature of goblin hearts and prisoner nutrition (prisoners are each other's nutrition, if you get my meaning, and sometimes a goblin heart is snuck into the...food...to turn hungry prisoners and replenish the goblin ranks). The human skull bowl in this sequence is a nice Hamlet callback, too.

The only thing that could be construed as disgusting (aside from the mass murder and Soylent cannibalism, obviously) is the suggestion of what...happened...to Olivia between what we see in the panels and how it contextualizes her transformation into the Goblin Queen by the end of the issue (let's just say that after she escapes and slaughters several goblins, including the Goblin King who killed her father, the remaining goblins urge her to eat the Goblin King's heart because they're "already family;" like, best case scenario, her father and brothers were fed goblin hearts and survived as goblins so it's literally true, but Olivia was stated to have been tortured in some way, and with the clear focus on psychological trauma here, it's easy to make the inference that maybe the Goblin Queen and Robyn Locksley...share a particular experience).

Returning to the relative present, the Goblin Queen merely beheads the survivor of Yorick, saying she would have been "no fun" as a "plaything." Shallow analysis (and the simplicity of the average Hollywood narrative) would lead one to believe it is to protect her own throne and title. But I think it's darker, deeper, and more personal than that. I think it was to spare the young woman from the same fate of...abuse...and corruption she suffered as Olivia, and as uncomfortable of an analysis as this has been, it turned what would have been a bog-standard villain origin with flat characterization (like Pan) into something tragic and nuanced that still had badass combat paneling and decent dialogue. So whether or not you grasp its uncomfortable depth, Grimm Universe #3 is worth the read.

Grimm Universe #4

featuring The Dark One

If you recall the first issue of The Summoning, this issue is an elaboration on Malec's opening flashback there, now narrated by Shang (who is alive again but we haven't seen him yet, because Shang will Shang).

In the Mystic Kingdom of Valdor (which, spoilers, but as we've seen in the Goblin Queen issue of this series, the Robyn Hood trilogy, and Volumes Nine and Ten of Grimm Fairy Tales, it does not bode well to be a kingdom in the Realm Of Myst), an aging king defies tradition by sparing his firstborn son from being sacrificed to a nearby, hard-to-pronounce volcano (so it will provide them with fertile land and erupt onto the neighboring kingdom instead). The son grows up to be Malec, and the story kind of turns into a morality flip on The Lion King (which is Star Wars) for a bit, complete with the king telling Malec about the ugly burden of status quo leadership and a scarred ruler usurping the throne by killing the king and sending Malec away to die where he meets two sidekicks and returns home for revenge to reclaim his birthright amidst a fiery confrontation.

I liked how gradual and clearly informed Malec's turn to the Dark (One) Side was, with longtime Zenescope cover artist Anthony Spay writing an initially sympathetic narrative journey of revenge and corruption, from birth and survival to the inciting incident for his path to darkness and the Napoleon-esque, patchwork of interests and moralities that made the pre-Dark Horde what it would become, to the events we saw at the beginning of The Summoning, but with more context as to the identity of the baby Malec intended to sacrifice before his death.

As for that extra context, this issue gives us some "small world" prequel bullshit where, after the new king sells Malec into slavery, the first two people our "hero"-cum-vessel of evil exchanges words with are Draco and Shang. Yeah; it's not just a case of "small world" bullshit, it's also a case of "the heroes and villain used to be friends until their differing views on revolution and war changed things" bullshit, like Star Wars, or Transformers One, or Mufasa, or I Know What You Did Last Summer, or....

So, one of the things that was kind of retconned between The Summoning and Grimm Universe #4 is the fate of the baby. Here, we see that Shang defied physics through the ambiguity of comic book paneling, and saved the child. We technically don't see the child die in the lava in The Summoning, either, but there was enough exposition and suggestive context there that you could assume it died and not be wrong, but also not feel deceived by the "happier" retelling here. There's also the question and potential of who the child grew up to be, with Thomas, Robert "Rip" "Vanilla Ice" Van Winkle, and Nutcracker Prince Erik all being likely possibilities. And given that we've already read a shorter version of this story in a previous arc (and with fewer prequel contrivances), this one point of speculation is the most interesting thing that the issue has to offer besides the competency of its narrative.

The rest plays out the same, with Corruption and Hate creating what they fear because the Keepers suck, something, something, Lego motorcycle vacuum cleaner, nothing makes sense. Like, yeah, the volcano is allegedly an evil nature goddess, but there's also centuries of pure, virgin soul energy built up in there, and Malec at that point was arguably a balanced soul (well-meaning, but twisted by his peers and tragedy and the bias of his upbringing). So without Keeper interference (which, they're duty-bound not to do anyway, according to The Innocent), it's likely that the thing they feared would have never come to be. Keep deez nutz, you idiots!

Sorry for the dated meme, folks! And sorry to those who think I called them idiots. I didn't, but I'm apologizing anyway. My readers are incredible, awesome, and definitely, most likely, not idiots, because you can read in 2026. Thank you all for your continued support.

Speaking of stories we've read before, though, the Grimm Universe Trade Paperback has the zero issue of The Dream Eater Saga reprinted as bonus material because it has The Dark One in it. There is a fifth issue of Grimm Universe, but we won't get to that until the Unleashed event, so, Merry Christmas in June, Ticketholders!

GFT Holiday #4 (2012)

Here Comes Santa Claus

You might notice (if you notice these kinds of things) that the A Cover by Giuseppe Cafaro and Ula Moś was used as the cover for Different Seasons Volume Three even though this issue wasn't collected until Volume Four (which never got a digital version, so the only way I know this is because of eBay, and since I try to spend as little as possible so I'm not financially crippled any further, I don't have a physical edition to be able to speak on its quality). The B Cover here (which, if you recall my Godzilla vs Biollante review, is something I would have to touch strategically for empirical body horror reasons) by Marat Mychaels and Juan Fernandez was used for the Different Seasons Volume Four cover.

The format for this Christmas issue follows a horror anthology structure with three stories and a wraparound, much like the 2010 edition, all written by Pat Shand, so you know you're in for a real gift in this Present time.

The frame, "Here Comes Santa Claus," sees a mall Santa telling the other three tales to a group of five teenagers with attitude, and one creepy college delinquent (Maddie, Tiffany, and the older Dylan are the only three who get named) who have broken into a mall for an unsanctioned, after-hours scavenger hunt.

"Frosty the Snowman" begins in medias res of an act of domestic violence gone wrong (not that they can go right, but murder is wrong, so you know what I mean). Edgar has had it with his wife's constant nagging and goes...Mad, bludgeoning her to death. It doesn't help Hatters—eh; matters—that his favorite stovepipe hat looks a Liddle familiar, or that his dead wife possesses a nearby snowman and Returns the favor (Wonderland puns!).

In "I'll Be Home For Christmas," Tara misses her dead twin sister, Hannah, and so visits a voodoo priest who looks like a Zenescope villain, in hopes of speaking with (or perhaps reviving) her. It works, but the twins learn the Law Of Equivalent Exchange the hard way and discover the circular logic it takes to keep a goldfish busy.

In "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" (which was a memory game with chaste Truth Or Dare penalties before it became the song we know and forget today), Lilian has dumped her possessive boyfriend Kevin [insert "Home Alone is a Saw prequel" and We Need To Talk About Kevin references here] for a sweet, hairy Chad named Ben, who has to spend the days leading up to Christmas on a business trip (the original twelve days actually started with Christmas and ran through the Epiphany, but things change as we think they must to make us "comfortable"), promising to send her a gift every day while he's gone. Unfortunately, when the gifts start showing up, Lilian learns that Kevin is more unhinged and...motivated than she expected, and the gifts (made from, and/or containing pieces of, Ben's body) were actually from him. It feels like there's a massive amount of disbelief to suspend and/or a corporate analyst level of logistical gymnastics required to justify Kevin being able to surgically process a grown human body and sculpt and paint twelve art pieces of the depicted quality from parts of said body in as many days, but that's just ruining the gory, sensationalist fun of Zenescope taking folk content like this and making their own twisted gift out of it, which they've had a good track record with in their yearly specials so far, this tale included.

Less interesting, however, is the ending of the "Santa Claus" wraparound, where we find out (as was the case the last time one of these issues had a mall Santa present for an act of Christmas B&E) that he was Krampus in disguise the whole time (the dark nature of the stories also kind of gives it away), and instead of each story causing its in-Universe audience to turn over a new leaf, Krampus just used the gory endings to kill them and make a diorama for his slutty, feral hench-elves because the world sucks (just wait fourteen years, Krampy-pie; you have no idea how good we all had it in 2012 compared to the senile circus of fuck that this past decade has defecated on our once-great country) and he's too impatient to wait for things to get better. Is this perhaps evidence that Corruption and Hate should have let Malec stay dead? Perhaps.

Whatever the case, Sela shows up to save the suggested statutory Acrobat-cum-conspiratorial grand thief and his barely legal sidepiece from the orally fixated turd-demon of Christmas fear and his ho-ho-hos. Krampus will return in Realm Knights: Doomsday, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two-hundred dollars, the end.

It's somewhat important to note here that Sela is using the Gold offensively rather than the Red (maybe Mystic energy works better against holiday mascots?), and she has her sword (which won't reach its final form or get any concrete lore for some time to come).

I suppose I could try to go in depth about why each pair of characters got the stories they did in an attempt to flesh them out more, but when half of them don't have names and the pacing is as brisk as it is for most of the page count here, even Pat Shand can only do so much, and I can only respond in kind. Perhaps Shand's weakest work for Zenescope? Perhaps. But it's not a non-starter as Christmas specials go. Enjoy in joy.

Stay Tuned for more epic Heisei Era boredom on Friday, thank you for the amazing traffic this month, and please continue to support me and what I do by Becoming 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 I would like to pass go and collect two-hundred dollars, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

46

Omnibuster,

Out.