Boom! Studios 2019
Written by Kieron Gillen
Illustrated by Dan Mora
Coloured by Tamra Bonvillain
Lettered by Ed Dukeshire
Gran and Duncan are in a race against time to get back to the Otherworld. The sword in the stone awaits, and he who pulls the sword from the stone becomes King.
I want Gran to be my Gran is all I am saying. She is one of the biggest hoots ever and her take no prisoners attitude with her what's filter mouth and yeah she'd be a come true. Gun toting, Otherworld fighting and all that Jazz I would probably pee my pants and have the best time of my life as we fought to put King Arthur back in the ground. Just the fact that this a more true to telling of the rising of Arthur in this day and age and not the romanticised version is one that excites me beyond belief.
The way that this is being told through the story & plot development and the introduction of characters as well the situations that arise and which they are going to have to face is amazingly well done. The character development we see started off as pretty much blank slates for everyone and the more the we see them the more they become fleshed out and feels like this natural progression. Sure we are only at the third issue but seeing Gran take Duncan to see his date, Rose, and that we get to see her reactions keep giving me life. When we add the pacing to the mix and all these twists, turns and revelations come to light this creates one hell of a great ebb & flow. There really isn't a moment throughout this book where the reader isn't introduced to something new to have joy experiencing.
I am sorry but I cannot get over Gran because this woman loves holding a gun and pointing it at people. From Duncan to Rose and even the bad guys here she puts Clint Eastwood to shame. The fact that this story isn't sugar coating the fact that Arthur's return means that he's going to purge Briton of all outsiders is very much akin to an ethnic cleansing and that angle that has been introduced is something that I don't think anyone, outside Kieron and the higher ups at Boom!, would have been able to see coming.
Dan's work is just so effin bloody brilliant! The linework is stupendous and how he manages to utilise the varying weights to create this attention to detail just sets our eyes alight. The man has a way with faces and facial expressions and along with the way he shows body language he manages to show us more characterisation that words alone couldn't. The composition inside the panels and how backgrounds are utilised as well the foregrounds to bring us this depth perception and scale is phenomenal work. Plus the creativity and imagination from when we go to Bath, with the city, the outside and most assuredly the inside of the church will leave you mesmerised. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masters eye for storytelling. The colour work is equally as impressive and seeing how the light sources are shown and the base colour with it's hues and tones within it for shading and shadows just make the linework seem that much more, more complete, better and create that overall mood, tone and feel.
Gran, Duncan and Rose against the forces of evil who would bring Briton back to an age of glory where only Britons were welcome. Yeah sounds like a made for SyFy film right but how this is being told and how these creators manage to come together as team makes this one of the most exciting and thought provoking new books. Also I have to give props to Ed because the different styles and fonts for the different characters is delightful.