When it comes to comics series involving the word “versus” and any combination of heroes, there is almost certainly one thing which is bound to happen. The heroes will not really face off against each other in the long run, and will most likely being allied to each other in fast time, though probably after they have at least tested each other’s skills. It should be no surprise therefore that the series Grimm Fairy Tales versus Wonderland turned out this way. Really though there could be no other way, both by comic clichés and by what the company has going. Despite some of its questionable representations of women on its covers, Zenescope and Grimm Fairy Tales does tend to have a lot of female heroes, far better than the usual proportion of male to female, so much so that Grimm Fairy Tales probably is the only comic universe that has a better than 50% ratio in favor of women. At the head of this world are two heroines, Calie and Sela, representing Wonderland and the main world of Grimm Fairy Tales. Here they are matched up against a character intent on taking over Wonderland, not the first time that this has happened and presumably not the last.
One of the byproducts of the meeting of heroes is often the triviality of it. The meetup is set up as if to settle some kind of hypothetical question of who is better, but both heroes being heroes end up on the side of the righteous and end up fighting together. What usually gets glossed over in these cases is the villain, as the combined power of the two heroes is generally enough to overcome any one bad guy. In this series, this doesn’t seem to be the case. The main villain looks as though he will be playing a part in the ongoing story of Wonderland, but that brings up another problem particular to the series of Wonderland. The characters of this series have been mostly self-contained in scope to the rest of the Grimm Fairy Tales multiverse, and the popularity of the concept of Wonderland a land of madness and nightmares was presumably one that the original creators could not have foreseen. In the meantime, there has been an explosion of Wonderland books, and reading through any one of the main ongoing series of Wonderland reveals this, as it is pockmarked by information boxes with details like “See Madness of Wonderland TPB”. In the growing world of Wonderland, Grimm Fairy Tales versus Wonderland provides yet another reference point to the main series.
If this is going to reach some breaking point is a more relevant question. As long as the series remains self-contained and away from the main problems of Grimm Fairy Tales, then it shouldn’t be a problem. This was a perfect setup therefore in this series, as Sela comes to Wonderland to fight and not Calie to Earth. The end result is pleasing enough, although perhaps a little mundane at times, but it does provide an easy access to a future problem for Calie. Indeed this issue alone sums up the entire series effectively, and someone reading the main Wonderland series but not Grimm Fairy Tales, might like to get this issue just for a bit of context as to what is going on.
Story: Troy Brownfield Art: Luca Claretti
Story: 7.3 Art: 7.5 Overall: 7.4 Recommendation: Read for fans of Wonderland, Pass for Everyone Else
Zenescope provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
