Dark Horse Previews Picks: March 2021
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Orphan and the Five Beasts #1 (of 4)
It’s a tale as old as time: A warrior sets out on a quest to kill the corrupted disciples of her former master, spurred on by his dying words. What makes this version of the tale special? The fact that it’s being written and illustrated by James Stokoe, that’s what. After giving us the likes of “Wonton Soup,” “Orc Stain,” “Godzilla: The Half-Century War,” and “Aliens: Dead Orbit,” the man’s artistic abilities should be well-known to everyone by now. So when I hear that his next series promises to be a revenge-driven kung-fu extravaganza, I think that it’s something that will likely be right up my alley. Expect things to start off at “over the top” and only get crazier from there, if the creator’s previous works are any indication of how this is going to go.
Critical Role: Tales of Exandria #1 (of 4): The “Critical Role” franchise has apparently been doing quite well for Dark Horse. Which is why we’re getting this spinoff miniseries ahead of the third volume of “Origins.” If I’m being honest, the solicitation has a lot of fancy fantasy names that sound like whoever wrote it is trying to gussy up the miniseries’ premise of a fetch quest for a sacred MacGuffin that goes wrong. Those of you more familiar with the “Critical Role” podcasts might look at it differently and maybe be able to recognize some of the terms and characters being thrown around there? As I’ve still only experienced the franchise through its comics, I’m just going to have to dive in and hope that this is as good as those have been.
Dead Dog’s Bite #1 (of 4): Tyler Boss, artist of “4 Kids Walk Into a Bank,” writes and illustrates this miniseries about a missing woman in a small, rural town. Her name is, wait for it, Cormac Guffin, and if you don’t get why that’s funny then I’ll just ask you to read my thoughts on the new “Critical Role” miniseries again. Even though the covers to this miniseries and most of its solicitation text imply that it’s going to be a pitiless crime yarn, that name and the description of the story as “a riddle wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a candy wrapper” imply that there’s some irreverence lurking beneath the surface. I’ll admit that the thought of seeing how these two tones will mix in this kind of story has me intrigued.
God of War: Fallen God #1 (of 4): I probably should get around to picking up the previous miniseries from writer Chris Roberson and artist Tony Parker. The former has done good work over the years with most of his Mignolaverse work, so it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for him to dive into “God of War’s” brand of mythological action. I mean, isn’t Kratos just a version of Hellboy that uses knives and bludgeoning instruments instead of guns? Don’t answer that. Anyhow, “Fallen God” looks to do some long overdue continuity-patching as it shows us what happened to the title character after “God of War III” in an attempt to bridge the events of that game and its excellent 2018 soft reboot.
Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens #1 (of 5): This miniseries, like the previous two I just mentioned, was resolicited in the wake of the pandemic. Rather than try and bring the man himself back to life, co-writers Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden are going to focus on one of his most trusted associates, Sofia Valk, as she takes up the monster-hunting mantle of Baltimore. Which is a good thing because WWII is just getting underway. You may recall that Baltimore met the vampire that changed his life on the fields of WWI. So it’s anybody’s guess as to what the Nazis’ initial battles have awoken on the battlefields of this war. Bridgit Connell provides the art for this volume. I’m not familiar with her work, but I’m hoping that it will be closer to original series artist Ben Stenbeck, who defined that title in my mind.
Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1952 – 1954: Collecting the first three volumes of the B.P.R.D.’s early adventures with Hellboy. Either you’re like me and have bought these volumes already, or have been waiting for them to be issued in an omnibus format like this. As for everyone else, these are generally fun stories, but not something I’d recommend to an unconverted fan of the Mignolaverse. It’s worth noting that this series is currently up to 1956, with the story feeling like it’s incomplete at this point (if I recall correctly…). Are Mignola and Roberson planning a concluding volume for this series, or will the next collection be padded out with a completely different set of stories? Naturally I’d much rather see the former happen than the latter.
Ether Library Edition HC: Matt Kindt and David Rubin’s three-volume-series about scientific investigator Boone Dias and his adventures in the titular land get a fancy omnibus edition. It’s $60 but being able to see Rubin’s stellar art in an oversized format will be worth it if you haven’t picked up these volumes already. As for Kindt’s writing? It’s generally pretty good, but Rubin’s work is the star of this series.
Invisible Kingdom vol. 3: In Other Worlds: When we last left the crew of the Sundog, they had just made a blind jump into unknown space to escape the pursuit of the Lux megacorporation. The good news is that they didn’t die, and they may have even found some new allies in doing so. The bad news is that, according to the solicitation text here, this new group is called the Siblings of Rebirth and their plan for saving the galaxy is described as “unthinkable.” This is the final volume of the series from writer G. Willow Wilson and artist Christian Ward and even though it won an Eisner, that wasn’t enough to keep this series from going straight-to-trade instead of being serialized over five issues like the previous volumes were. Then again, this does mean we’re getting vol. 3 sooner than we normally would, so I’m fine with that.
The Neil Gaiman Library vol. 3: This will be the last of these volumes until more creators decide to adapt more of Gaiman’s short prose works to comics. It’s also the weakest of the three, as the Lovecraft/Werewolf mash-up “Only the End of the World Again” is the one entry in this Library that really left me cold. Colleen Doran’s inversion of “Snow White” in “Snow, Glass, Apples” was quite good, however, and there were individual stories from “Creatures of the Night” and “The Problem of Susan” that were definitely memorable. So if you’ve been buying these stories in this format, then there’s still some work here to recommend it. Just be aware that this volume will send things out on a whimper rather than a bang.
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken vol. 3: Vol. 1 is currently on its way to me. I’m expecting good things from it after all the buzz I heard about the anime that was spun off from it earlier this year. That said, if you’ve read it and happen to really like this series, then you should prepare yourselves to buy this volume IMMEDIATELY when it comes out. Why? Because Dark Horse tends to put series on hiatus when their volume reaches some kind of multiple of three. Like “Eden: It’s an Endless World!” (15 volumes), “Satsuma Gishiden” (3 volumes), “Translucent” (3 volumes), “Drifters” (3 volumes, before the anime boosted its sales), “Mob Psycho 100” (6 volumes)… OH WAIT! “Mob” hasn’t been put on hiatus… it just hasn’t been mentioned in these solicitations for a while. Which means that EVERYONE should go out and buy more volumes of that series so that it doesn’t wind up going on hiatus. Because I’m just overreacting here, RIGHT?