In Plague, the bubonic plague that ravages Europe in the 1370s is actually a biological weapon created by the Catholic Church to kill off the magical creatures of the world: fairies, trolls, sprites, etc.  One man, Warbishop Jean de Moray, has made it his personal mission to spread the plague, but an unlikely trio rises up to oppose him: Twylyth Tegg, the brash new King of the Fey, Danann Atreyu, a refugee fairy who still harbors hope for the goodness in humankind, and Robb Aubert, a country friar who can’t believe his church is behind this horrible disease.

Being the horrible human being that I am, I realized that I hadn’t read or reviewed this comic when I found it buried among my “read” folder. Somehow it had gotten lumped in with months worth of comics that hadn’t been filed away into their digital homes. That being said, I finally read the comic, and I wish I had done so sooner.

Plague #1 starts with a brilliantly illustrated sequence that has Twylyth Tegg moving from the real world to  Tir Na Nog to see the old King of the Fey’s last few moments. The art doesn’t falter in quality from those early pages, and in some places carries the comic’s story when it seems to falter a little – more on that later. The art has a wonderfully muddy and grimy feel to it, which both suits the time period, and the backdrop of the black death incredibly well.

While I’m very fond of the higher concept of the story, tying the black death in with the supernatural world, the comic felt as though it struggled at times to keep up the early promise shown as the seemingly inevitable convergence of the central characters felt a little less polished than the earlier pages. That said, I did quite enjoy the comic, and I’m looking forward to the second issue (which actually arrived in my inbox about ten minutes ago, so expect a review soon). Despite my criticism, I do understand the need to pull the characters into a central location to set up for the rest of the story, and as such I’m a lot less irked by said criticism than it probably sounds because I’d rather the set up be concluded within the first issue, and for the most part it is.

Despite some flaws, this is a solid first issue that has me wanting to read the next chapter; at the end of the day, that’s all I want in a comic.

Story: Denis Magee Fallon, Jason Palmatier
Art: Zack Bruner Letter: Dave Sharpe
Story: 7.0 Art: 7.75 Overall: 7.5 Recommendation: Read

Graphic Policy was provided with a FREE copy for review