It all comes down to this!
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Evanier
Art: Sergio Aragones
What They Say:
It’s the grandest of finales as Groo: Friends and Foes wraps up with its twelfth and final issue. By now, everyone should have figured out how and where Kayli, the little girl Groo has been helping to find her father, finds her father. That is, if they’re smarter than Groo, and we hope for their sakes they are. This issue, like all of ’em, comes from the award-winning team of Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After skipping December, making it a sadly Groo-less full year of material, Groo: Friends & Foes comes to a close with this installment. The series has had a whole lot of fun and silliness throughout, though longtime fans will be more than familiar with it and enjoy it because of that familiarity. Admittedly, there’s only so far you can take the character without a radical re-imagining and doing so essentially loses the character and what draws us to him. So I’ve been thrilled with the familiar that we’ve gotten while also catching me up on a few characters that I’ve either forgotten or never read about before.
With the series focusing on a different person for each of them, the final issue could go a number of ways. Amusingly, it’s largely Groo-less for most of it as he’s now dead, or at least seemingly so. That the news spreads like wildfire is no surprise nor the varied reactions of those saddened by it and wanting to see it themselves and those that are looking to either take advantage by it or profit by it. This is all expanded upon by Kayli going throughout the lands looking for help in rescuing her father, the minstrel, before he’s executed, causing her to get the news to even more people. The culmination of all of this is that so many forces are now aligned on King Debar’s kingdom for very different reasons that it’s one of the biggest pieces of organized chaos that I think Aragones has likely done within the pages of this long-running property. Seeing how smoothly Evanier wraps all these storylines into each other while still being their own thing is simply fantastic.
And that’s been a big part of the appeal here, as we see Kayli spreading the news or others learning about it. The various stories all stand alone based on Groo’s interactions with him, but they also forge together into something so big and sprawling that you have to laugh at how ludicrous it gets as more and more arrive at the kingdom. Yet in the middle of all of this there is still Kayli’s story, which is the primary one here. Groo is groo and you know he won’t be dead long, but seeing the minstrel’s past and how his life went down and the losses he’s experience adds a lot, even if you could suss most of it out. Bringing Kayli the real resolution she needs with him is spot on yet still open-ended in a really good way. Kayli’s been a good connecting piece throughout the twelve-issue arc and giving her the final installment when you’d think it was more the minstrel is definitely the right path for it.
In Summary:
Groo: Friends & Foes ends pretty much on a pitch perfect note when it comes to simply everything about it. It’s a strong culmination of events that have occurred so far while still being its own thing and giving Kayli the attention she deserves after all her appearances prior to this. I loved the way it all unfolds and the simple beauty and detail of what Aragones does with his layouts and everything within each panel. The two-page spread alone is worth the price of admission with what’s going on. While this series comes to a close, there are two more in the offing as Evanier discusses in the letters page that there’s a four-issue crossover series of some sort coming up as well as another twelve-issue series that goes big like this one. It’s a great time to be a Groo fan once again.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: January 13th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
