Is it safe to sleep when there is a monster wandering your dreams?
Creative Staff:
Writer: Pat Shand
Artwork: Miguel Mendonca
What They Say:
Sela and her mentor Shang, along with their former enemy Belinda, have opened a school for a select group of Highborn and Falseblood teens with enhanced abilities. Their goal is to guide the teens who may one day be humanity’s only hope against evil from other realms.
Content (please note that portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As the faculty of Arcane Acre try to glean more about Bloody Bones’ past and the students are up to further mischief, something wicked prowls the other side of the mystic barrier protecting the school. The malevolent shade is rallying his allies of Maka and the Warlord to breach the shield with the sword Reaver; this enchanted blade can absorb any magic conducted against it, and thus, the wall is of little consequence for the trio. But, as they wait for slumber to enshroud the campus, the plans of this wicked team will soon affect the future of this institution for better or worse.
After the inhabitants drift into fits of restless sleep, the gnarled grip of this loathsome phantom tightens his grasp upon the nightmares which now haunt their dreams. They are now in the realm of Bloody Bones: his kingdom of illusions, his domain of delusions and his land of waking terror; here all is controlled by him – all they see, feel and hear. As he holds his captives within these manipulations, his forces are free to run rampant through the property to cull those unlucky enough not to succumb to his power. To sleep, perchance to dream would have been a far preferable fate than the one waiting them wandering the halls at night.
In Summary:
This issue would have been a perfect issue to fall under Zenescope’s Halloween Annual with the way Pat Shand crafts the demonstration of Bloody Bones’ power; this issue reminds me so much of the great Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, that I get chills remembering those scenes and the contrast of the ones now being displayed on the page. We were warned in the previous issues about not going to sleep and now the ignorance of that advice is now coming to fruition with horrifying results. Do we even want to know what will happen next?
But most surprising of all was the artwork of Miguel Mendonca gracing this book! The last time we saw his graceful lines was this summer’s Grimm Fairy Tales Presents The Little Mermaid. This is a dramatic turn around from the beautiful artistry of the world under the sea to the grim world of Blood Bones and Warlord that you almost don’t recognise his designs until you see the detail he puts into every panel – especially the action scenes. His frenetic depiction of movement from the oozing figures toward the school, the rippling of Warlord’s muscles and the sadistic smile on Bones, the last one gives me the creeps every time I see it. Then to end it with the death throes of a phoenix, marvelous to say the least.
Bloody Bones has made his move and the outcome for Arcane Acre looks bleak. Most are trapped within a nightmarish realm and the only ones who might have been able to help them are incapacitated. As if things couldn’t get worse, we know that Shand and Mendonca will be saving the worst for last. But is that a good thing for us? Can’t wait to see!
Grade: B+
Rating: 17+
Released By: Zenescope
Release Date: November 4th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
