Image Comics 2017
Written by Meredith Finch
Illustrated by IG Guara
Coloured by Triona Farrell
Lettered by Cardinal Rae
In the land of Ttereve, magical ability is a death sentence. Rose’s village is destroyed and her mother killed when Queen Drucilla senses the emergence of a new magical power in her kingdom. Convinced that the queen is behind her loss, Rose embarks on a quest for vengeance and soon encounters a band of rebels with their own agenda. Meanwhile, Drucilla’s reign of oppression and terror has brought her kingdom to the brink of disaster and with the disappearance of the Guardians, her people have lost all hope of salvation. Will Rose get the help she so desperately needs from her new friends or is she about to trade her quest for vengeance for something even greater?
I love a good sword and sorcery story and it’s so nice to see Meredith continue to grow and evolve as a writer. While I wasn’t a fan of the work on Wonder Woman I was a fan of the work she did at Zenescope and this feels like an extension of that. I’m really rather impressed and liking the structure of the story here and the way things are being revealed not only to us the reader but to the main character Rose as well. It’s nice to see her learning alongside us though just as interesting to see what we don’t know but the Queen does.
There’s a great progression to the way things are unfolding here. With Rose still being a child in a lot of ways and wanting to exact her revenge which then separates her with Will who is the only one who sees the truth. The way that all this comes to pass is wonderfully done and the pacing is great to see. I mean I love that there’s so much emotion emanating from the characters which seems to fuel not only the actions that they take but unleash moments for us to witness that helps move the story along. How it all works in concert with each other and gets the story to progress is fantastic.
IG and Triona make a stellar team on the interiors here. The attention to detail that we see is phenomenally well done. The facial expressions and body language here continue to tell their characterisation. The utilisation of page layouts through their angles, perspective and how backgrounds are shown really help the flow of the story. There’s also this excellent contrast between hard and soft which can be intertwined at times to really capture some great emotion on the pages.
Rose has a journey of self discovery to go on and her newfound travelling companions are going to be forced into being not only her guide in this but educate and train her in who she is and what she’s to become. I like that this is moving along a great pace which doesn’t feel rushed or that were skimming over vital moments because that means that Meredith is hitting the right stride here.
Action, adventure, intrigue and a nice fantasy trope woven together to create something that goes beyond what we expect to see.