I reviewed books from the mystery box last post. These are the ones that tie directly into #FantasyComicsMonth, as there were a number in the box that had sword and sorcery or fantasy themes. Most of them are independent comics, which I think is the case for most fantasy books these days because aside from Marvel publishing some Conan books on occasion, the big two haven’t put out much fantasy in years.

Anyway, here are the books.

Quested #1 (Massive/Whatnot Publishing). This one has an Adventure Time/Star vs. The Forces of Evil feel to it with cartoonish art and some self-aware dialogue to boot. The humor actually works because it’s not too smart for itself and not too twee. This came out in December 2022 and I think volume 1 has just recently wrapped up. I can see my kid finding this fun to read, so I’m going to see if I can find the rest of it on the cheap. Keep.

Nottingham #3 and MCS Legacy: Nottingham #1 (Mad Cave Studios). When I was at the Baltimore con, I stopped by the Mad Cave Studios booth. Last year, I’d bought a charity book that was published to benefit the people of Ukraine; this year, I was looking for recent issues of the Greek Mythology-centered series Hunt. Kill. Repeat (for some reason, I have #1 and forgot to put #2-4 on my pull list, so now I have to hunt them down … or order them from the MCS website). They didn’t have that title, but they had trades of a Robin Hood retelling called Nottingham and I would have picked one up if they’d hadn’t sold out of volume 1. So I filed that away in my head and as we were headed home and unboxed the mystery box (again, this will be part of an upcoming Pop Culture Affidavit episode), these two comics were inside. Score! I didn’t have to buy an entire trade to sample it!

It’s a solid book. The retelling of the Robin Hood story is pretty violent and dark in places and has the flavor of Game of Thrones (in other words, this isn’t the Disney movie, which I love). Normally, I shy away from such things, especially because they tend to go in the direction of grimdark violence for the sake of it, but I’ve read so many Robin Hood comics adaptations that are wed to the Errol Flynn version of the character that as dark as this is, it’s kind of refreshing. I may track down the trades or the individual issues if they are available on the cheap. Keep.

Odinn’s Eye #3 (Bad Idea). Part three of a five-part miniseries with ties to Norse Mythology. It’s pretty–with gratuitous sex in one place–but I don’t remember much of what happened. As a result, I’m torn. This looks like it might be a very cool series to try and collect because it’s short and might be in the “surplus” pile (so to speak); on the other hand, is it just a pretty mythology story that doesn’t have much substance? Keep. For now.

Skull Kickers #27 (Image). This book, from 2014, sounded familiar, but there’s been so many books published by Image since then that I lost track of them. This has a fantasy conceit that seems to feature barbarians, vikings, dwarves, kings, huge monsters, elves, and everything you might expect from a role-playing campaign or perhaps a video game. Jim Zub’s writing is fun and well-paced and for part three of a storyline I didn’t feel lost. Edwin Huang’s art matches the tone, being cartoonish without being cutesy. This is another one I’ll hold onto and see what I can find in the coming months as sales and other promos pop up at my LCS. Keep.

This isn’t all from the mystery box, by the way, just what I’ve read so far. I saved a few for later, and might not even review everything (I have to admit that writing all of these reviews gets tiring). But knowing that there’s at least two or three books that I intend to follow up on made the mystery box purchase worth it.