Pain is suffering … and yet sometimes it gives you strength to do the unthinkable.
Creative Staff:
Writer: Ben Meares
Artwork: Allan Otero
Colors: Ceci de la Cruz
Letters: Maurizio Clausi
What They Say:
Gretel, with Calabar in tow, comes face-to-face with Tituba, the witch who murdered Hansel and cursed Gretel. But, Tituba has secret information up her sleeve about Samuel’s dark history and Gretel’s true purpose. Will Gretel be able to stop Tituba before she can exact her apocalyptic plan? And after her world is destroyed by Tituba’s revelations, will she even care to save ours?
Content (please note that portions of review may contain spoilers):
After two hundred and seventy-four years Gretel is finally able to confront the person who sent her down this morbid path of death and destruction, the person who she ran away from confined with a gruesome hut in the woods and started this journey of hunting down witches and yet now she is not alone. The mysterious woman named Calabar is by her side and with the aid of her organization they make their way to Las Vegas where this origin of monsters has been hiding, however, is this brave girl able to face what may lay in front of her after all this waiting? The trip cannot be over too soon for as the minutes tick by impatience grips the hunter but once they arrive her hesitation is even more intolerable, each step seeming to draw her deeper into unraveling what she has been fearing the most – the truth behind her existence. Tituba is her name, the one of who starved her and fed a twin brother only to callously slaughter him before a shocked sister and tempted the sibling with a meal which she could have refused … but did not. That singular mistake began her odyssey of emptiness for revenge in which she faced so many more painful memories, consuming the unthinkable and gorging on their power, only to find herself back from where it all started, before her.
And yet now that Gretel is able to confront the woman named Tituba, it is anger which clouds her judgment and allows rage to strike forth in a foolish act which forces surrender to her captor, unless she wishes to see Samuel suffer due to her actions. The hunter is now the prey and as this supreme witch begins to toy with her ensnared victim allowing the web to draw ever tighter, giving her great pleasure as she sadistically taunts this inexperienced girl with recollections of their shared past. While the vile woman could care less if humanity suffered, she does not want her makeshift offspring to be slaughtered by her own hand, instead leaving the unpleasant deed to someone who was trained for these killings, the girl she caught so long ago. Tituba greatly relishes in outlining the cruel plan the lovers fashioned to correct the mistake, allowing Samuel to confess how everything since her escape was part of their long term goals, by which it was no coincidence they found each other in that dark forest – the old man was sent to find and train her, nothing was left to chance. Tituba has been controlling everything in Gretel’s life since the very beginning: from her capture, to torturing, starving and feeding her brother’s heart, allowing her to break out and have Samuel guide and discipline her in the hunt and then finally leading Gretel to this place – there was nothing out of her view which she did not know … everything has succeeded according to plan. If this is true, then what else is there for this blonde huntress to seek, her revenge is now empty and she cannot hope to win against someone so powerful … what other choice is there than to give up?
In Summary:
I cannot express how much I am awestruck by the wicked complexity of writer Ben Meares’ story, to be able to form an emotional investment with a new character is extremely rare, yet alone someone with a background which we are familiar with due to a popular fairy tale which has been so wondrously perverted into something which we can fully enjoy with adult tastes and moralistic uncertainty. From the very beginning of Gretel we have witnessed this young girl become entangled within an ominous presence called Tituba and now it is fitting to watch as everything has fallen apart as the controlling witch now takes great pleasure in verbally tearing her apart, brick by brick. The very foundation which was based upon seeking revenge for the death of her brother Hansel was the genesis of her journey and yet now we learn it was not fully of her own will but crafted due to inside influences. But of course one has to question why innocents such as the siblings must be the focus of this story, and so I received this answer from Meares via Twitter:
Ok, so, it didn’t literally HAVE to be Gretel. She wasn’t predestined for this or anything like that. That was slight hyperbole on Tituba’s end. It was more just Tituba remarking on how perfect the circumstances were. Gretel had a twin, and that made the whole situation so miraculous for Tituba because of how the binding spell – the spell that turns Gretel into a proxy for Tituba – works. Having Hansel’s heart – a heart that has near-identical genes to Gretel’s – means that the binding spell is far more likely to work. (Gretel’s body would be more receptive to her brother’s near-identical flesh than some stranger’s if that makes sense). Mix that with the fact that Gretel was abandoned in the woods and would, by Tituba’s estimation anyway, be receptive to Samuel stepping in as a surrogate father. Basically, Gretel was the most ideal possible girl to become Tituba’s proxy.
With this explanation, you cannot but feel a gut punch in our understanding for the cruelty of Tituba – a master manipulator of everyone and everything she can crush within her vile claws. While it may be a coincidence they crossed paths with the witch, it does not mean she will waste an opportunity which is so deliciously satiable to be passed up for her plans to succeed. To now comprehend in afterthought what her machinations involved over the centuries is staggering: all Tituba wished was to correct the mistake of her makeshift offspring which were created due to inequality for women being treated as second class citizens, those same children were killed due to jealousy of men and the unfortunate spread of power to even the balance and it quickly grew out of hand. The hatred for humanity from mistreatment due to skin color and sex is truly disgusting but her solution was not without its problems which she solved with sharing of herself, however, you then question if she can correct this dilemma so simply why is she afraid of dirtying her hands with the same ruthless efficiency as before. To hesitate when wanting to murder parts of herself may seem like a disturbing moral clash considering how many people her kind have murdered over the centuries, but then her remedy is just as frighteningly grotesque since she has no anxiety in molding someone else to do the dirty work, allowing her final goal to take precedence over how long it would take until the timing was right to reveal everything to her unknowing assassin. This parasitic vicious cycle of creator versus masterwork – Tituba blames herself for her own generosity and so to rectify the problem spends endless years and the dedication of her lover to train someone as the solution, but this, in turn, generates hatred for the instigator for once again sacrificing humans to do her bidding; out of an act of kindness this witch creates contempt … an ironic payment for someone once had love in her heart which now has become so twisted she is barely noticeable as being the same race she now desires to wipe from the face of the planet.
And if this woman could not become more disgusting the finale discloses a callous attitude of distinct pleasure in toying with her food … preferring to consume a cardiac treat once it has properly marinated in a sauce of misery of her own making. If you didn’t detest Tituba before, how could you not now? Gretel has been her unknowing slave for two hundred and seventy-four years and all the while her master has been watching as Samuel groomed her to murder the children she herself could not kill, in a perverted sense the blonde hunter had been eating of both her sisters and mother, all as she gained in power and skill. However as she sought vengeance for Hansel and fell into a strangling melancholia when she lost her way, the reader cannot but form a connection with this frustration since it is all too familiar in modern society. Although even as she finds a way out of the darkness to once again forge ahead toward her quarry, how were we to know everything was according to her creator’s plan, thus making the end more pitiful and subsequent devastation of what she thought was of her own doing was, in turn, nothing more than Gretel dancing within the palm of Tituba’s vile hand. This realization was delicious … to watch as each truth cleaved into her heart with increasing intensity, pummeling her into submission and preparing the main dish of tartare as the dinner bell prepared to chime for the last time. And yet even as Meares intrigues readers with this stunning reality for Gretel, he does not allow his stoic heroine to succumb under what would turn any other person into an emotional maelstrom – instead, it only serves to inflame her bravery into a raging pyre. This captivating twist of the plot may have made anyone else surrender but instead allows our favorite witch hunter to reinforce what we cheered for from the beginning … a true hero who will not submit no matter the odds. We could have not asked for a better conclusion and if this is how the first series ends, I cannot wait to see what will face Gretel in the much anticipated and hopeful future.
I still cannot forget the opening splash of this epic finale, showing a defiant Gretel break from what is expected of her even as she succumbs to the pain of anguish with fantastically detailed illustrations by Allan Otero – he produces such vivid and tangible despair you cannot but feel the release of what has been building for the entirety of the series. And yet what so graphically magnifies and materializes those powerful moments through an anchoring presence are the brilliantly effective color schemes produced by the talented palette of Ceci de la Cruz, marvelously securing the emotional fervor of every stupendous crisis. However even as the audience is struck by the sheer intensity of this sanguine event which exemplifies the suffering of our heroine, you cannot but also be amazed by the historic parallels of the past and present side panels, equivocating how the beginning and end of her life has always been enveloped by pain and suffering while connected by lifeless eyes. And while the recollections of her past failures polluted by crimson accents may seem repetitive, they effectively serve as a launching point for Gretel’s journey of reminiscence and in context, help to amplify her mistakes before Tituba begins her unraveling of the girl’s life. It is painful to witness the once optimistic witch hunter forced to face the bane of her existence – two beautifully alluringly women eclipsed in shadow as the subtleties of light and darkness dance off Otero’s seductively captivating curves of fabric, leather and flesh, all as de la Cruz’s forceful play of colors seduces readers to never look away from these mesmerizing details of this potential confrontation between a coy cat and a cowardly mouse. It is hard to accept such a beautiful woman as Tituba can be the embodiment of treachery, callousness, and depravity within the series, but made all the more believable as we watch helplessly as Gretel begins to crumble before the torment of a honeyed voice. Ruby red lips and a venomous grin versus the vacant stare of once sparkling blue eyes framed by golden braids of innocence … this is truly a battle of wills and you can clearly witness as our heroine’s determination gradually disintegrates under the cold malice of evil personified. Luscious tonal elegance makes this vicious struggle all the more painful as we witness every delicately defined feature upon our actors scream out in morbid agony or rapturous delight, one cannot deny this exchange is a pleasure to witness, even as we miss the signature prominence of the title being de la Cruz’s evocative manipulation of sepias plus black and white panoramas to depict the remembrances of the past; it was those brilliant usages of underutilized color passages which will forever etch into my mind the powerful nuances of emotional distress by employing tones which we normally link to historical scenes, and yet with a slight distortion of this standard we are left with something with far more potential. This is what Gretel pronounces to the audience: with passionate images and emotive colors which promote something which we do not expect, the series creates a visual experience which is memorable for all the right reasons and defines the title as being the graphical caliber which all future Zenescope features should struggle to reach … providing entertainment worthy of this groundbreaking publisher.
Gretel has become a refinement of what I desire from all future Zenescope titles introducing a new courageous character – a wonderfully callous villainess versus a noblewoman attempting to correct mistakes of the past and seek vengeance against the one who created her. To see such monumental conflicts such as moral struggles of right and wrong, balancing what may seem as minor faults of judgment to sacrifice for the greater good, remembering a chance to correct great wrongs but left in disgrace and contests for a weak girl and to expose the truest essence of a hero in order to prevail – this is what I want from a story. With an inspirationally riveting narrative, dynamic yet alluring illustrations and colors which provoke an emotional fervor which I would not think possible, Gretel has created a series which excites and makes one consider the sterling definition of a hero: one who struggles with their own preconceived certitudes when faced with the truth and denies their own moral code to prevail to the greater good for the betterment of humanity. If this is what we seek to acknowledge during our greatest time of indecision, then Gretel is the hero who we deserve.
Grade: A++
Series Grade: A++
Age Rating: T (for Teens)
Released By: Zenescope
Release Date: July 17, 2019
MSRP: $3.99