Judging solely by the cover, one might think that this issue has a chance.  After all it features Britney Waters, the Red Riding Hood inspired werewolf who is one of the better standalone characters in the Grimm Fairy Tales Universe.  While she is in fact in this issue, there is little else for this issue to offer.  As a jumping on point for Realm War, this issue is probably as good as anywhere, but as Realm War seems to be so poorly plotted, I am not sure if there is really a good place to get on.  In this issue Sela and her allies are subject to an airborne attack, to which Baba Yaga presumably sacrifices herself, and then for the remainder of the story there is postering and deliberation, from both sides.  Both the heroes and the villains it seems can’t figure out who their allies really are, and this burns through most of the remainder of the issue after the initial action.

One of the consistencies in recent issues of almost every Grimm Fairy Tales series is the tie-in to all the other realms, between Oz, Myst, Wonderland and Neverland.  All too often though the connection is a bit too forced, and that is the case here.  The multiverse of Grimm Fairy Tales was never fully developed before being put into being, and the scars of this are still visible as for instance the land of Myst remains a sort of free-for-all land of “anything goes” when it comes to plot or character development.  So too is it consistent across all the series that stories contain a lot of interesting concepts that are missed for the bigger plotlines.  For instance the Goblin Queen, one of the more intriguing but also undeveloped characters in the Grimm Fairy Tales universe, is sent to rule over Neverland.  Such a story is one which would be interesting to see, but as before, such opportunities seem to be wasted.

This is what this issue boil down to.  With so much talk and so little action or implementation of interesting concepts, this story doesn’t really go anywhere.  Generally while I give a free pass to most artists as long as it doesn’t interfere with the story, that is not the case here either, as the flat coloring makes everything seem very two-dimensional,  not a good thing when the characters are already two-dimensional enough as it is.  It ends up being disappointing, as all the pieces to succeed are here, just they are mostly wasted, leaving both the characters and the readers without a solid direction to go in.

Story: Joe Brusha Art: Sami Kivela
Story: 5.5  Art: 5.5 Overall: 5.5 Recommendation: Pass