If one had any questions as to whether the main universe of the Grimm Fairy Tales universe is overly complicated then this single issue would answer that.  The entire world is embroiled in darkness as the Dark Queen has managed to merge the realms and is in the process of consolidating her power.  Following on the events of the previous issue, Sela is still looking for a weapon which she can use against the Dark Queen, but it would have been a lot easier if she had not been ambushed while doing so at Area 51.

In order to try to make sense of this issue there are Greek gods, characters inspired by fairy tales, characters inspired by legends, characters inspired by fantasy and original characters that have similar qualities to those already mentioned.  Also to keep track, there is a triple cross in this story, in which a character is deceived and then deceived again and then the original deceiver get deceived.  It seems at times that the writers of this series don’t really understand the need for any kind of restraint, and instead just keep piling on the plot twists and the new characters that act for reasons which are not fully developed.

The lack of a single compelling narrative is where this series falls down.  The main series of Grimm Fairy Tales can at times contain stories that are well conceived and well told, but it would seem that with the company wide crossover in mind that the sum is far less than its parts.  There are even compelling characters in play here but they get relegated to secondary roles.  One can only hope that after the events of Realm War that the main series goes back to the drawing board and tries for something more restrained.

Story: Joe Brusha Art: Sami Kivela
Story: 4.0 Art: 7.0 Overall: 4.0 Recommendation: Pass