Saturday, November 1, 2014

Age of Darkness: Volume 1 by Patrick Shand - Ashley's Review

*I received an eARC of this book from Diamond Book Distributors/Zenescope Entertainment in exchange for an honest review*

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Title: Age of Darkness: Volume 1
Author: Patrick Shand
Publication Date: July 22, 2014

Synopsis: The Age of Darkness has descended upon the Grimm Universe! All hell is about to break loose as the Dark Horde prepares to wage war on Earth. The evil Dark Queen has risen again and now the table is set as she will set in motion a plan that will have terrifying and lasting ramifications on the Grimm Universe.

This Trade Paperback collects Grimm Fairy Tales Age of Darkness one-shot and Grimm Fairy Tales issues 94 through 98.


--------------------------------------------------------

Review: These Grimm Fairy Tale comics are interesting. They take classic fairy tale characters and totally change them, making them more bad-ass and crazy. They're also a lot sexier than you probably remember from your childhood (especially the females, who wear very little clothing). These comics are definitely written for an older audience, and I do like where some of the storylines go and how they're all interconnected.

But they really don't make all that much sense when you read them on their own or out of order. I've read the Oz comics, and some of the Wonderland ones, so I kind of had a basic idea of the world and what's going on when I started this set, but I got confused really quickly and found myself having to go back and read parts of it again. It was also really frustrating to see little side notes that "hey, you should go read these issues to get more background and understand wtf is going on." Like, no thanks. Just give me a little bit more information in THIS volume and I'll be good. I don't want to go all over creation trying to figure out what's going on. Make it more subtle.




I did enjoy the way all of the good guys band together to try to defeat the Evil Queen, and how the Evil Queen goes about collection minions and turning hearts dark. I liked that all of her words were red, because she's the Red Queen (and also very evil), so the connection was nice. The artwork is also really fantastic, and all of the colors and drawings make it easy to tell which character is which and if they're good or evil.

Overall, I wish I had more knowledge about the background before diving into this comic, and I wish that a little more background was provided in the collection itself. I'm not sure if I'll continue with this storyline, especially if I don't go back and read previous issues, but it's not terrible if you're all caught up. If you're looking for a gritty, sexy, fairy tale retelling, I think these comics would be right up your alley. I'd only give it a 3/5 though. 



--Ashley

No comments:

Post a Comment