The danger can’t be headed off but rather embraced.
Creative Staff:
Story: Matt Wagner
Art: Matt Wagner
Colors: Brennan Wagner
Letterer: David Lanphear
What They Say:
With his family torn apart and their home destroyed, Kevin Matchstick is left to his own limited resources to try and save them all. Delving deep, he seeks an artifact that will help provide protection for his daughter, even as Magda and Hugo take steps to escape their luxury prison cell.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The slow build of events as we more toward the final arc of the series is one that’s working well for me. While I cut my teeth on very different kinds of tales from Matt Wagner years ago there are certain styles and approaches he uses that still resonate well with me, particularly with his artwork. This issue keeps to the three stories that are running with the way the characters are spread apart and it works well to advance things individually while it all slowly comes together with what should be a pretty strong finale going by the events so far.
The quietest of the stories at the moment involves the Gracklethorns as they’re still in a quiet state after mother’s return. She’s taken such a beating recently that it has really diminished her, which is a surprise to Karol when she finally gets past Olga for some quality time. The reveal within this section isn’t big in a way but it reinforces what she’s trying to do in that she can’t just deal with just Matchstick at this point as there’s a confluence of events coming together and they all need to occur for her to really achieve her goals. It’s always a dangerous game as we’ve seen in stories before and I don’t really have doubts about it here either, but it provides reasons for why they’re moving as slowly and deliberately as they are.
With Kevin, he gets a fun little adventure with Miranda here as they head to a cave that Joe mentioned before where an item from a Merrow exists that will give Miranda some added protection as they move forward with finding the rest of their family. Miranda is utterly adorable throughout this and there’s some brief but fun action to it as it unfolds, allowing them to bond more and for their position to come together well with what’s to come. With Magda and Hugo, she’s showing him the tricks of magic to utilize various household items in a defense/offense kind of way and we get more bonding with them as well. What I really like is seeing more of how observant Hugo is and how it leads Magda to gaining a new familiar after the recent death of their cat. Of course, this one’s a bit more vicious as they draw it forth from the seemingly bottomless red room but the transformation itself is priceless.
In Summary:
With just a few more issues in front of us the sense of everything really coming together is front and center. Both Magda and Kevin are aligning everything they need to be ready and engaged with events while we also see why the Gracklethorns are idling a bit in a way that makes sense. It’s a good book just in seeing the parent/child dynamics play out with the mix of magic and how they each treat their respective kids. Wagner’s artwork and the color work continues to be strong and there are some really great pages throughout, particularly the whole Merrow piece for me. It continues to be a very fun book.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Image Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: July 18th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
