By: Christy Marx (story), Aaron Lopresti & Claud St. Aubin (art), Hi-Fi (colors)
The Story: Does flying beastback beat magical quick-changing? Amy decides!
The Review: Of all the “Third Wave” titles, Sword of Sorcery is really starting to prove itself as what I like to call a comfortable middleweight title. It doesn’t really amaze you with original, far-reaching ideas, but it does try some new things every month. On a technical level, you can’t fault anything it does, but neither does it stand out in any way. The most important quality of these titles is their consistent storytelling value.
Marx succeeds on pretty much all counts. Nothing she’s written so far has set the internet alight for its radical inventiveness, but there’s plenty of interesting material to work with. Marx clearly is thinking of the long game for this series, as this issue establishes quite a few important plot threads and characters. None have much weight in themselves, but you can foresee how they may all contribute to a layered, compelling story later on.
Here’s an interesting fact: the people of Nilaa* originally came from “First Home,” now better known as Earth. It’s not an extraordinary revelation, but a sensible one, and it bears some interesting possibilities. Was Nilaa barren of sentient species before the arrival of humans, or did humans characteristically conquer the world? How did humans come to Nilaa in the first place and why? Why does Graciel claim she “saw no signs of magic remaining in First Home” when Justice League Dark clearly shows otherwise? What is Nilaa’s position between Earth and the Black Diamond (which Senshe probes Graciel about)?
In this issue Marx also introduces a whole gaggle of new characters. Some have varying degrees of prominence here, but one dependable rule of thumb in fiction is if they get a name, you can count (or you should be able to count) on them having a more important part in the story later. In no particular order, we meet Elzere, Amy’s burly trainer; Bhoj, her genial uncle; Rushil, Bhoj’s dour-looking son (?); and Niyati, a member of the Ghaggra Clan which attacked Amy and her mom when they first arrived and whose “mate” died during the battle.
A lot of this new material comes at the cost of our protagonist’s development. I find it slightly odd that Amy has been grooving along with her new life so smoothly. She mentions her former homeworld twice without much attachment or nostalgia, which sort of makes sense; life as a magical princess sure beats the doldrums of a high school outsider. And clearly, she and her mom are dedicated to each other, and since her mom plans to stick around Nilaa for the time being, Amy seems resigned to that plan too—at least, until Constantine calls.
Lopresti continues to deliver pretty, straightforward art for the series. This time, he’s joined by St. Aubin, whose work I mostly panned back when R.E.B.E.L.S. used to be a thing. I’d say this is mostly Hi-Fi’s doing, but St. Aubin’s figures bear little resemblance to the stiff, plastic characters that used to drive me crazy back in the day. I won’t go so far as to say that he’s doing particularly amazing work now, but it’s a big improvement, that’s for sure.
For the conclusion to his reimagining of Beowulf, Tony Bedard suffers from the limitations of the back-up feature format. The big climactic encounter between the cyber-warrior and Grendel’s mother devolves into a massive info-dump, confirming our apocalyptic predictions about how this world came to be. Bedard struggles within the space given to develop Beowulf’s conflicted feelings between realizing his purpose and protecting his loyal companion. Ultimately, Bedard only halfheartedly succeeds in giving his little tale resolution, leaving Jesus Saiz and Brian Reber to paper over the gaps with their lush, expressive art.
Conclusion: A lot of material introduced with shades of potential, but nothing outstanding just yet. A somewhat unremarkable end to an otherwise solid back-up story.
Grade: B-
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: * Almost without exception, I always forget how to spell Nilaa without looking it up first.
– I can’t believe Marx goes for one of the oldest, lamest, corniest jokes in the book:
“You’re the most beautiful niece I have.”
“I’m the only neice you have, Uncle Bhoj.”
“Hahaa, you’ve got your mother’s wits, too.”