The Looking Glass Wars: CrossFire by Frank BeddorMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I went into this one blind. I haven't read the other entries in this series and wasn't expecting much of a connection with the Lewis Carroll original when I got a copy from Netgalley.
The comic does an excellent job of explaining the world and its characters without alienating a non-series reader. Kudos for that.
The story takes a while to introduce you to the Looking Glass world. At first it's very different with none of the characters resembling any of the creatures of yore. Once we move to, quite literally, the heart of the story, the connections become evident.
This book is an extraordinary read, quite fun and immersive. However, it had several problems.
While the main plot centers around the Queen of Hearts, she doesn't actually do much. Her partner Dodge leads the armies, she gets her advice from Hatter, she chooses a man for a strategist, and the wily con she sends to retrieve an important artifact is also male. All the suits are headed by Queens, but none of them do any heavy lifting. I know it seems like a weird complaint to make, but it would be great if we saw more active female characters in all art, rather than passive ones or authoritarian ones who don't get involved in any of the action.
The art was distracting at best and confusing at worst. It's hard to make out between characters when the majority of the female characters are svelte, dark-haired white women. It also made the action indecipherable, which is a massive waste as it takes up a sizable chunk of the story.
Lastly, I hated the ending. For me it felt like it ruined the entire book. Spoilers abound, so beware.
After successfully winning the battle that no one doubted the Hearts would lose, there is peace and prosperity in this land. This is when the Queen of Hearts announces to Dodge that she is expecting. Voila, great, that's like the only good news anyone should ever care about. I thought crappy pregnancy endings died with the eighties; apparently I was wrong. This really didn't work for me and annoyed me enough to not want to go back to this series. How disappointing. End Spoilers.
I would have loved to give this book a much higher rating but it was problematic on several levels. Story-wise it is a lot of fun, but this is the 21st century, we need to see comic books move away from cliches.
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