Mad Cave Studios 2021
Written by David Hazan
Illustrated by shane Connery Volk
Coloured by Luca Romano
Lettered by Joamette Gil
The Sheriff of Nottingham stalks a traitor through the darkened boughs of Sherwood Forest to Kirklee's Abbey. The chase will bring Ev face to face with a troubling figure from his past. With the Nottingham Guard distracted, Hood and the Merry Men plot their next move.
The story here is absolutely phenomenal! The Sheriff of Nottingham has always been a shady character but with this story we’ve seen just how off the rails mentally he truly is. He has a singular vision and god help anyone who stands in his way and this includes the men of the church, the men of god whom he’ll gladly mow down to get the man he’s after. This is the epitome of a man of the law thinking that he’s above the laws he’s sworn to uphold and it is this abuse of power that seems to have resonated from time immoral up through current events today. I love the way that this issue engages the readers mind and makes them think well beyond what we see on the pages and it certainly sets David up for a great new up and coming writer in my humble opinion.
I am a fan of the way that we see this being told. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development is extraordinary as we see the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances that they encounter which continue to the marvellous job of fleshing them out even further. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of story alongside the twists & turns along the way we really are in for a chock-full of surprises.
I’m still not the biggest fan of the interiors here. There is just something about the way we see the faces and body proportions that bugs me. The linework however, is well laid down and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work is achieved extremely well. The way we see the chainmail for instance is a great example of this. When we see backgrounds they do extraordinary things in enhancing the moments and then how we see them within the composition of the panels bring us depth perception, that sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is beautifully done. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid eye for storytelling. The colour work is fabulous! How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is exceptionally well rendered. The sky, the ocean, the green in the trees how we see these are just a godsend to amping up the work we see within these pages.
I should have realised just what kind of man Robyn of Locksley was early on but I chose to ignore that in favour of the mainstreams ad nauseum representation of him being this altruistic fellow. Shame on me for sure, so it’s never been this nice to be proven wrong because of my own assumptions. There is this great kinetic energy to way we see the story being told that charges the atmosphere the reader gets to enjoy this story in. if this were a ship tossed from side to side during a tempest it would have nearly same affect as what we see now.
Mad Cave Studios isn’t afraid to take chances on new talent as they recognise that everyone has to start somewhere and with a story this tight it needed to be coming from them. It’s a strong intelligently written tale told in a way we’ve never seen it done before and by George this is the way to reinvigorate a tale we’ve all seen told so many ways before.