Review: Grimm Myths and Legends, Vol 5 / Author: Troy Brown Field /Artist: Troy Brown Field / Publisher: Zenescope/ Release Date: Out Now
Mash-ups of fairy tales have been a growing trend recently. We’ve seen Snow White and Rose Red in modern day New York, we’ve seen cop shows with trolls in them; the possibilities are wide and interesting. It’s a pity then that Grimm Myths and Legends has decided to throw away most of the elements that make a fairy tale worth reading.
Instead, we have a series of super-powered creatures that have a vague fairy tale theme. For example, Russian witch and horrific monster, Baba Yaga, is a sexy lady in this. But then all the women in this book are long-legged supermodels; the artwork is bland and samey, as well as messy and overdone. The style is quite common in some American comic books, and really doesn’t suit the source material, nor does it tell the story very well. Anyone expecting a Mike Mignola-style take on the work of the Brothers Grimm will be sorely disappointed.
This is the fifth volume in the Grimm series, and no concession is given to the new reader. This makes catching up very difficult to do and hardly worth the time; there is no charm to this book, it’s simply a generic superhero comic book with its own overly complex mythology. This is a shame, because the point of using fairy tales as grounding is that everyone should be broadly familiar with the set-up. The plot is a sort of treasure hunt involving ancient Egyptian artefacts, and doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s predictable and bland, lacking all depth in favour of telling a rather standard superhero quest story. If you’re looking for a re-spun version of the Grimm fairy tales, take a look at Fables instead, it’s much better.
