Zenescope's Wonderland Returns with a Vengeance

WONDERLAND rears its ugly head once more in the Grimm Fairy Tales universe, with Raven Gregory at the helm of the crazy train.

A new madness is coming, and it begins in the form of Mr. Monarch -- a.k.a. Caterpillar. I don't know what evil he's about just yet, but I know it's vile because he begins his plans at a day care center.

That's the first of many hooks that are being set in this first issue, that finds Calie Liddle and her daughter, Violet, estranged from each other. Calie is doing the book tour thing as a famous fiction author, retelling her Wonderland story as a work of the imagination rather than a horrifying reality, and Violet is purposefully ignoring all her calls.

But forces are at play that will draw them together once more, as one of Calie's obsessed fans believes (quite rightly) that the stories are real, and she plans to prove it! What she unleashes into our world will bring enough madness that neither Calie nor Violet will be able to ignore it.

It's a tad bit on the slow side, given that so much must, by necessity, establish the players and where they are on the board. Gregory accomplishes this through some day-in-the-life scenes of both Calie's book tour and Violet's work as a mechanic shop manager, with a sinister female presence monitoring them both through mirrors. The climax of the chapter, however, is large enough that the second issue should really start hitting on all cylinders. The interior artwork from Allan Otero is sharp and in keeping with the quality of the Edgar Salazar cover. The easter egg hunt on page two is inspired. Unfortunately, many of the panels lose the detail of the inks from the coloring job by Grostieta.

Once more, through the looking glass!