Knights of Greymalkin #1 - by Mitch Crane. Everyone loves an AU take on classic characters right? And no other stable of characters have quite the same amount of AU love poured onto them as the X-Men. Weve seen fantasy before, in Kittys tale and in that weird Wolfsbane story with odd Andy Kubert art, but this is something a bit different. If I am honest, and frankly, this is a review so I should be, the beginning is a bit slow. We get a lot of narrative exposition and its a lot of showing, rather than telling. Scott sees this, Scott did this, but I might be being a bit harsh. We all know that writing ourselves into the first issue of a series is difficult. Finding the right balance between showing and telling is something we all struggle with. I know I do. The focus, quite rightly, is on Scott this issue. Although, we dont learn too much about him, aside from the fact he is a squire to a knight of a realm and hes apparently scared of everything and unable to react when confronted with something he cant understand. Mitch did introduce a whole host of characters, we meet the Brotherhood, get some form of introduction to Magnus, the Blacksmiths God, and the Knights themselves. Like a lot of issue 1s, this is mostly setup. Theres a lot go through here, how to build up a world in a single issue is difficult. We get to see a fantasy element, and the mythology that comes with it. Celestial Gods, Dwarves, Goblins, Orges, Elves etc. Its all there. I think with the amount of information we were given in this first issue, its quite easy to be over-whelmed. A more paired down (HA, Im so guilty of throwing everything into the pot) might benefit this, and give us a more human connection to Scott. At the moment, he just feels like he was the cypher needed to introduce us to the world and the cast, and we dont really get an understanding of who Scott is, unless we know him from the comics. Is he markedly different? Hes a Knight? So he should be brave and prepared etc. He is a Squire, but apparently, only a few weeks away from being a Knight. The ending of the issue was a bit abrupt, I thought, but it does set up nicely for the next issue - which, I guess is the team building exercise issue. Over all, its not bad at all. Really is worth a read, and even though I seem a bit negative, it is good. Theres a lot of creativity and fun use of the characters, and putting them into high fantasy roles gives us a potential for slightly different but the same characters, which I am really interested in seeing. Looking forward to issue 2.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 13:29:03 +0000
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