Vault Comics 2019
On Sale 05/29/2019
Written by Joe Corallo
Illustrated by Liana Kangas
Coloured by Rebecca Nalty
Lettered by Melanie Ujimoi
Over millenniums, Brigid, Goddess of the Sun, has conquered and converted the entire solar system into worshipping her and her alone, save one space colony. The witches of Fey are the last believers of The Morrigan, Goddess of Death, Brigid’s sister and the only other God left. As Brigid’s forces prepare for one final battle, The Morrigan prepares to do what she does best: Destroy!
This is one of those concepts that strikes you at the end of the book as being one that you hadn’t thought of and wonder why? The fact that Joe has decided to use the Fey and their pantheon of gods and goddesses is a bold choice considering majority don’t know them as they do others. Then add into the mix that we aren’t talking only of Earth but of inhabited planets in the solar system and things a much different feel. I love it, I think it’s incredibly original and has this factor about it that I see could happen among the Faerie worshipping populations. Sibling rivalry taken to the extreme, we’ve seen it tried but never like this!
I’ll admit I am not overly familiar with Joe and his style of writing so this is a chance for me to really get a good at how he goes about constructing a story. I love the opening page here as the narration sums up what we need to know about the past and present. It isn’t overly detailed but then it shouldn’t be you have to leave some things to be explored later as well as get the readers’ mind engaged in creating it for themselves based on the information given. I have to say for a debut, to me, Joe really impresses me with what I am seeing here.
When we are led to meeting our main character here it feels natural. There is something about this that sets up what is to come in a way that is delightfully unexpected. Winona is this sweet unassuming and quite naive young woman and with everything else going on it is almost ironic in how she’s going to change everything or be a saviour of sorts either way I love that this innocent child is going to be forced to grow up before our eyes and that transformation is something to look forward to.
I miss interiors that are so nicely detailed with this crisp, clean linework. This new stylised stuff that is all the rage has it’s moments and its place but to me it feels unfinished. There isn’t a whole lot of variation in the linework that we see, it’s pretty much the same weight all the time. Backgrounds need something more to them as well. The faces are what gets me the most, the eyes keep changing in how we see them, sometimes with a bottom line sometimes not which to me is distracting. All that being said and all things being equal the work does create a very bright and airy look and feel that goes along with the theme rather nicely. The colour work is exciting and how the varying shades of colour are used makes a huge impact. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels does show a good solid eye for storytelling.
The story & plot development, the pacing and the characterisation that we see here is extremely well done. It leaves the reader feeling intrigued and wanting to know more. I want to explore this universe of Fey goddesses just on the ideas alone and then I want to experience how they spread across the planets while the other pantheons fell. Joe’s story is utterly amazing to me, it has my mind going in a million directions with so many options, opinions and desires. This is precisely what storytelling should do to a person.