Zenescope Entertainment 2015
Written by Meredith Finch
Illustrated by Miguel Mendonca
Coloured by Jorge Alberto Cortes
While Erica suffers at the hands of a psychopath, the Sea Witch reunites her parents and brings them one step closer to their daughter. She does all this for a seemingly simple price: the King’s blessing. But Erica may not need saving, since she appears to have a plan of her own.
I am so enjoying this new take on this classic and as we open with the King and Proteus discussing the fact that the King has given the Sea Witch a blessing. Something that apparently has far reaching consequences that we aren’t as privy to as Proteus is as well as the King himself since he his father died too soon to really give him the knowledge of what it could mean. Oh and by the way I love the Merman look that Miguel and Jorge provide for us. The undersea look and the way things flow and the well built bodies really do this gender swap story wonderful things.
Up on land the crazy man who kidnapped Erica has assembled this massive army that will make “the dark one” very pleased. I’m going out on a limb here to say that he was able to successfully take her DNA and graft it to the men of this army creating a new hybrid of human/merman types that will be extremely formidable in combat. Of course now that he has his army he’s ready to take his time and kill Erica as he sees fit. Only Erica has other plans.
With the keycard to the door she was slipped she makes good on her attempted escape and she’s really not in a good mood as you can imagine after being captured. I love seeing her in action here because she’s fighting her way out of this complex and is demonstrating powers we never knew she had. Perhaps these are common in many forms of fish and sea life but so far we’ve not seen her use them so it’s incredibly interesting to see now.
As we see the events here unfold and the Sea Witch watching it all from her mirror you really begin to get the sense that her machinations seem to be coming to fruition. Meredith is weaving one heck of a story here. There’s so much subterfuge and behind the scenes stuff happening that you have drawn into this from the beginning. That there is only one issue left doesn’t mean she’s stopping her story the way she wants to tell it. I mean with two armies now ready to square off and the fate of Atlantis hanging in the balance what will happen next is really anyones guess.
With incredibly solid, interesting and intelligent storytelling alongside some extremely detailed and gorgeously rendered interior artwork the future of Zenescope’s new direction is firmly on course to rock the comics industry.