Tales From Wonderland: The Red Queen one-shot (Zenescope – Gregory / Bonk / Blond / Crank)
Once upon a time a woman was imprisoned in the fortress of the Queen of Hearts. But now that the Queen has been gone, Wonderland will see a new Queen arise to take vengeance on all of those who have wronged her. Also features a back up story that reveals more of the mysterious origin of the man known as Charles Dodgson and what drove him to attain immortality at any cost.
Raven Gregory is back! And in his return, he brings the story of the rise of the Red Queen… from prisoner to magical warrior and dominant ruler. And the way that the talented Rich Bonk (The Piper, Return to Wonderland) draws her, Xena has nothing on this girl!
This one-shot fleshes out what is going on back in Wonderland and the literal changing of the guard during the Beyond Wonderland series. It would seem our new queen would rather play with chess pieces than playing cards… very cool, makes for some great battle scenes and some visually entertaining new creatures. These one-shots all funnel into the upcoming series Escape form Wonderland, the third part of the trilogy. Also, as a back up story there is the second part of “The Arrangement” which is giving the back story for various player in the Wonderland series. This stars none other than Belinda, from the monthly Grimm Fairy Tales book, perhaps to tie in Wonderland to the entire Grimm mythology – in any case it’s an added bonus to those of us who are femme fatale fans 🙂
Raven Gregory is one of the nest writers out there for pressure-cooker type, intelligent horror / suspense story. He is the modern day comic book equivalent to Alfred Hitchcock. To compliment his writing, the Zenescope creative art team – headed by Rich Bonk, colors by Blond and lettering by Crank – once again sets the standard for what an independent book should look like. Not only are they at the top of the game, professionally and artistically – but they have the ability to create something that is “eye-candy”, horrifying and positively supports the story all at the same time. I’m not quite sure what kind of teamwork models they are using at Zenescope to work on their books, but it is working… Like most of their books, The Red Queen one-shot is great and without a doubt worth the cover price!
and as added bonus, Zenescope did a alternative photo cover – yea, it’s good too!
Issue grade: A
