A dangerous quest amid much training.
Creative Staff:
Story: John Tsuei
Art: Audrey Mok
Colors: Raul Angulo
Letterer: Jim Campbell
What They Say:
Tara and Roya make a valiant escape from their captors with the help of a long-lost ancestor. As the three travel together, the history of the Daughters of Parsa is revealed, but so is a new threat, the fabled Serpent King.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I really enjoyed the early issues of Sera and the Royal Stars that I had read when it first came out but I missed a smattering of them, including the two prior to this, which makes this one a bit rougher to get into. But the core concept is there that John Tsuei set and that makes it easier to get back into the groove of it with the firmly established cast that was largely revealed in the opening issues. Audrey Mok continues to deliver great looking pages, especially with as dialogue-heavy as this series is, which helps to keep it moving forward and interesting the whole time. There’s a lot of background given in this installment and Mok’s artwork with how it’s imparted on the journey definitely makes a typical infodump a lot more interesting.
For Sera, her story is the bookend to this piece for the most part as she’s undergoing more training after the events of Sterash and is still feeling conflicted over what happened and how it unfolded. That’s not going over well with her mentor of the moment but the two continue on and it mostly serves to reaffirm what Sera knows must be done. Where most of the book focuses on is where Tara and her daughter Roya are, imprisoned and about to be executed as explosions are starting to circle around where they’re being held. The guards are actually pretty good in this instance as they were told be Etalin that if anything happens, execute them. And that’s what they’re doing. The problem is that they’re in no way able to deal with what’s attacking them – Tara’s aunt Leilyn. She’s been fighting the good fight for decades and while she’s on the tail end of things she’s still better than your standard guard duty rotation types.
This trio ends up on a bit of a journey where the intent is to see out the serpent king that has been trapped by magic for decades and acquire one of his snakes. That snake will help them with the bigger cause they face and will help Sera achieve it. It’s a solid enough setup to move things forward and when the time comes it allows Roya to be considered a woman of equal with her mother and great-aunt going forward as she faces the serpent king herself. It’s a good bit of action that comes with some cost to it, but by the time the event happens you’re very on board with it. That’s because we get some good tales of the past handed down as is done by tradition within women of the family, something that didn’t happen as much because of Tara’s mother disappearing and then issues with Sera over the years. This trio that makes the journey here definitely works well and I finally felt like both Tara and Roya felt like more fully formed characters by the end.
In Summary:
I’m sure I’ve missed things by missing out on the two previous issues but there’s a lot to like here. It’s definitely an installment where someone new can jump on and get a feel for it and whether it’s something they want to read. I can still fondly remember browsing the racks in my younger days and just trying random things based on appealing covers or recommendations without starting at the first issue. Tsuei and Mok have a good thing going here and what this issue delivers is some solid background information, growth for Roya, and a clearer path ahead for Sera. Albeit one that is no less dangerous than before. It’s got a great look and color design to it and Tsuei’s scripts definitely make me a fan.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: Vault Comics
Release Date: December 11th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
