It’s not easy being a god in Groo’s world.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Evanier
Art: Sergio Aragones
Colors: Carrie Strachan
Letterer: Stan Sakai
What They Say:
The bumbling barbarian Groo has made quite a name for himself, traveling the land leaving a path of destruction and cheese dip. He is either so greatly feared or favored wherever he goes, Groo’s earthly reputation causes a Groo deity to arise in the heavens! While Earthbound Groo hungers, his Divine Groo alter ego unleashes chaos!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The return of Groo is always a good thing even when it’s a bad thing. I was pretty underwhelmed with the series we had last year with the Tarzan crossover, but mostly just in the Tarzan parts. It’s been since 2017 since we saw the Play of the Gods series and getting back into more material with them leaves me in that wary place I felt back then. But, in Evanier and Aragones we trust because even “bad” Groo has some great gags and some amazing artwork and that makes it worth checking out. Evanier’s got the right tone and style, obviously, with a book like this so that there are always terrible-y fun puns and gags and there’s so much to enjoy with Aragones’ artwork that it’s simply a delight to go through a new work – especially since it’s been decades of Groo-ness in my life..
As with any series, there is a lot going on here, and with this being the third and final miniseries of this Gods storyline, it’s got a lot of inertia behind it. Groo himself takes a bit of time to get here but he’s also doubled-up as we have his god-version as well. The real Groo is surviving as always after the ships sunk of Ahax and it’s amusing watching him trying to figure out food – poor Rufferto – and having it jump into his boat. We see how he’s able to get back to where he started the whole being worshipped thing and it ties in well to events going up with the gods. As they struggle with a god of Groo (and Rufferto), they’re trying to manage him and the chaos he causes and actually try to learn from him by putting together a cheese dip to keep him from eating the sacred lambs. That leads to them discovering they don’t have the taste for it and it has a huge impact on the real world, much to the fear of many a mortal.
The sizable cast of characters are definitely having their fun along the way as well. The sage finds himself in a land without Groo and that has him looking to use Groo’s recent presence in order to get himself a comfy job for a while, which is setting things up for later. The minstrel and his daughter go in a different direction and it’s fun to see/hear more of his silly songs, at least until he ends up in a place where anything Groo-related is a criminal offense, causing him to be tossed into jail. That lets his daughter take up the instrument to try and earn her way in the world in order to save him. She’s got talent as well and it’ll be fun to watch. And all of this is operating under the threat of a war being put together in the heavens in order to deal with the Groo-god that exists. It’s just surreal because you can see how the gods are going to weaken their standing and Groo’s will only ascend.
In Summary:
Groo is something that in a lot of ways you know exactly what you’re getting with it. With this being the final round of a series of miniseries dealing with different parts of a larger storyline, it has a lot of moving parts but all flows together well. You can just jump in and figure it out along the way because it’s also still a surprisingly verbose work. There’s been a long build in dealing with the gods themselves but it looks like the war is here and it’s going to be exactly what the Groo-god will be the most excited about. Beyond heavenly cheese dip. Oh my.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: December 21st, 2022
MSRP: $3.99
