The fight of their lives!
Creative Staff:
Story: Rafer Roberts
Art: Kristen Gudsnuk
What They Say:
The nefarious Cultists manage to summon the fire demon on the equinox! The fate of the city, maybe the world, hangs in the balance as Sage and her friends battle the Balrog head-on. Will the demon be too powerful for our young heroes?! Don’t miss the epic conclusion here!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Modern Fantasy has worked a fairly standard storyline for what it’s attempting to do here in genre storytelling and that’s come across well as Roberts and Gudsnuk incorporated a lot of fun trappings within it. The finale works about as you’d expect and we get a good epilogue that helps to give us a look at where any possible second series could go. Roberts provides for a lot of fun dialogue throughout this and keeps the events moving forward pretty well and I definitely like everything that Gudsnuk put into this series with the designs, the little quirks, and just the fun it looked like she had with some of the details.
With the group unable to stop the cultists from calling forth the balrog in the mall, it turns into a mess pretty quickly for all involved. The binding didn’t take so it’s not under the cultists control and they’re panicking since it’s attacking indiscriminately. That has Sage and the gang stepping in to help out because they can’t let any of this fly after all the training they did and their belief in that they’re the good guys. Of course, having Bock-Darr basically just running into danger ahead of anyone without a plan kind of forces the issue when you get down to it. The fun of seeing the chaos unfold and watching as the team steps up to do the right thing and follow through on it all is a delight – especially with Fentax and Lizard Wizard basically putting themselves out there in a way that makes them likable.
Every character basically gets their moment to stand tall and I like that it opens to a young Sage sequence at first with her family that ties into the epilogue. While it may be a little trite for some that everyone gets their moment it is fairly standard storytelling and works well to let them shine here after putting in the effort. The epilogue deals with the cult and how the government deals with it and shows how everyone is a far better person now – though Bock-Darr may be the exception when you get down to it. I really like Sage and what she discovers but also just in seeing Lizard Wizard in a place where he’s competent and capable but still uses lots of his abilities just for the fun of it.
In Summary:
Modern Fantasy was a very fun series overall and one that I’m glad I took a chance on reading. Rafer and Gudsnuk put together a fun project that played to the characters and world design well so that it was fun for those that are into the whole fantasy realm but also accessible to everyone else. The details in the artwork delighted me and just the fun expressiveness and varied designs of the characters clicked well. I’m hopeful for more of this in the future though I’ll admit that I’d love to see it more as a double-sized standalone issue as opposed to another miniseries. A series of one-shots/specials that keeps from going too big on the stories and keeps it to the fun of the characters.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: September 26th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
