Creative Staff:
Story: DJ Kirkbride, Adam P. Knave
Art: Nick Brokenshire
Colors: Nick Brokenshire
Letterer: Frank Cvetkovic
What They Say:
Battles are fought, weapons are bestowed, and romance begins to blossom! The new queen puts together her own Round Table as Merlin reveals what set the fae war off in the first place, the King in Shadow plots the defeat of humanity, and a devious third party is revealed . . . Are they friend or foe?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of The Once and Future Queen worked pretty well for me in introducing this new incarnation of a familiar tale. Taking the Knights of the Roundtable into other settings has been going on for a long time and can add some fun twists to things. The team here made something pretty distinctive right out of the gate, though it felt like it should have been a double-sized issue so it didn’t have to cram so much into it so quickly. The second issue lets things breathe a bit more but it’s still moving along quickly, which reveals a lot but makes it a touch harder to really connect with the characters as you feel like you’re bouncing from plot point to plot point with reactions in between from them.
The opening for this installment continue the action with the Fae incursion that we got at the end before and it’s definitely fun to see how the team operates while trying to figure out their place in everything. For Rani, she’s doing most of the world since she has Excalibur but she’s still not sure how much of it is her versus the sword itself that’s doing things. It’s a solid battle that gives us some idea of the tone of the action the series will takes but it also reveals for us – and Merlin – that the Shadow King in the realm of the Fae still lives and is orchestrating things. That gives us the bigger picture view of things and allows him to provide some worry so that it’s not all bravado from Rani and the others as they deal with the localized threat, at least for the moment.
Thankfully, a decent chunk of the book focuses on putting more pieces into place. We get a little bit of time with Morgana as she reports to the Shadow King, giving us an opportunity to see how that dynamic works and can potentially be subverted. We also get to see how everyone talks about Rani’s options without including her in it, which is standard teenage angst material but nicely done here. What I liked the most, however, was getting Lance and Gwen more on the same page with things and for Rani to learn more about her role as the Arthur in this. That includes arming them, with a little help from Merlin, and making it clear that the trio really have a strong bond. One that Gwen wants a lot more of as she puts her weapon tattoo in a comically creative place without a wink or a nod, opting instead to make clear her desire for Rani. I’m hoping that’s given some room to play out in this series that’s only five issues.
In Summary:
With a lot more setup in place this time around, The Once and Future Queen delivers a pretty engaging issue even if it feels like it really needs to slow down just a bit more and let things soak in. The series is naturally playing with familiar concepts and twisting them in similarly familiar ways, but the execution is solid and it leaves me wanting more of it to be able to really dig deep with the ideas. The artwork is pretty good with some really welcome “non-standard” designs so that it feels more real world and varied as it should be. My hope that like a couple of other miniseries out there from Dark Horse these days that this is just the first of a couple of miniseries to come and that we’ll get some breathing room along the way. It’s definitely fun and fans of the Arthurian material will likely get a kick out of it while younger fans not familiar with it have so much to explore.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: April 12th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99