The Old Guard: Tales Through Time

What do you do when the movie made out of your semi-obscure comic goes on to become a huge hit on Netflix but you’re not ready to release its third and concluding volume?  If you’re Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez, writer and artist, respectively, of “The Old Guard,” then you put together an anthology of stories about the characters from that series with some of your comic industry friends.  Which is how we get Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber telling us “How to Make a Ghost Town,” as Andy works out some aggression on people who did her wrong.  Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro “Bonsai Shokunin,” the story of a samurai who killed a lot of people and was rewarded for it.  Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming deliver a story about pasta, parenthood, and WWII in “Passchendaele.”  Other contributors include David F. Walker, Vita Ayala, Nicola Scott, Mike Henderson, Kano, Jacopo Camagni, as well as Rucka and Fernandez.  Because why should they be left out of the fun?

Hmmmm… “fun” is probably too strong a word for this anthology.  Best to call them “proceedings” because while there are a dozen stories here, most of them don’t feel like they add much to the overall story of “The Old Guard.”  The majority of them, in fact, are more concerned with spotlighting the prejudices of the past and settling scores at the same time.  Others also throw in the righting of wrongs, though that’s no guarantee the story will be any more interesting as a result.  Most surprising is the fact that while Rucka and Fernandez’s stories don’t fall into these particular traps, they’re still not all that interesting with the first coming off as a quaint trip down memory lane and the second feeling like a trailer for the third volume.

Given the amount of talent that contributed to this volume, I expected much better stories than what I got.  It’s also probably why Jason Aaron and Rafael Albuquerque’s “An Old Soul” stands out as the best one in this volume.  Aaron is writing about religion again, here, but he finds an unexpected angle to tackle it from that leads to some good grindhouse fun that Albuquerque delivers with glee.  I don’t know if there are currently plans for another set of “Tales Through Time.”  If there are, then I’d sure love to see these two come back for it.