Groo the Architect.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Evanier
Art: Sergio Aragones
What They Say:
You’d think the smartest man in the world would be wise enough to not have Groo as a friend! The Sage has developed another scheme to amass wealth without working hard . . . but how clever can a scheme be that relies in any way on our hero? From the award-winning team of Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Groo: Friends & Foes hits the halfway mark with this issue and it’s been quite the fun ride so far. I’ve gotten to reconnect with a fun range of characters that I haven’t seen in years and experience new adventures with them while still being easily familiar thanks to the eternal nature of Groo. With this installment, the latest friend of Groo that gets his time in the sun is the wise old man known simply as the Sage, who travels with his dog like Groo does Rufferto. It’s not so much that Sage is the intelligent mirror image of Groo, but there are some fun similarities between the two in how they operate and work, where even though they try their best, it often doesn’t lend itself ti actually helping.
With the Sage on his wanderings, grateful that he’s nowhere near Groo, he’s reaffirming that by passing through an area where it’s plain Groo has never been due to the fact that there’s a fully functional bridge working there. And the people generally seem to be happy, pleasant for the most part and not in a tizzy that you would normally get after dealing with Groo. The population there is not without its issues though as we see how the local king charges a lot to cross the bridge, which makes it problematic for most citizens and merchants in the area. And difficult for an old man simply looking to cross. A chance encounter gets him filled in on the why of it all, which in turn sets things into motion for him to try and get a new bridge constructed by the merchants and laborers in order to get out of the passage tax.
Naturally, Groo himself makes his way there and reconnects with Sage, who smartly uses him to get things done with the bridge and dealing with the king’s forces. But therein lies the rub; it never works in trying to use Groo for anything. Groo has always been friendly with the Sage since he sees him as a true friend, but it’s Groo’s ways that always cause trouble. While he does well here in listening to the Sage by not doing things, it’s when he’s unsupervised that things go badly for all involved, to great comical effect. Groo doesn’t get to engage in swordplay this time around, but seeing just his presence and the effect it has on several different things hits a lot of fun notes and makes for a good time as he really, really just wants to help.
In Summary:
With the Sage trying to run his game here in order to change the nature of things for the better, it unsurprisingly doesn’t work out for just about anyone involved in the situation. But for the reader, what we get is a very fun little adventure in economics, trade and building things with manual labor. The Sage sees things and tries to figure out better ways to do it for all involved, though it looks at only a piece of the puzzle. But what we get as the reader is a very fun little comedy that brings these two together and let’s Groo help by not helping. And there’s a lot of fun in watching that play out. The book also makes out great by Aragone’s artwork in a general sense, but the two page spread of the Sage viewing the bridge is fantastic in what it offers in terms of detail and showing what a lived in scene should look like.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: June 17th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
