I Hate Fairyland 4 Review

Summary: 

Gertrude isn't  dead  !

Huge surprise I know. 

Gertrude  is having none of this  second guest nonsense, and  pulls  the  Queen of  Fairyland herself  through  a mirror, to have a little friendly talk. 

This goes as well as expected. 

And  after the little tete a tete,  Gertrude  puts two and two together.

And again, she will have none of that. 

As Happy goes on with her quest to find the key of Fairyland, Gertrude set off  to  find one of the evil doom's of Fairyland. 

And  naturally she finds him, with a minimum off fuss.

Assuming  you  call  trekking through the doomed forests, 

Survive the bawling fields,

Scale the  peaks of the snoring snotties

and out run the Boggle breath,  to reach The Skull Island Of  Mountain Doom Island*  ! 

Nothing. 

It's all very skully. 

Inside  Gertrude  appears ever so humbly ..ahem before  one of the evil dooms and  asks him to grant her his power. 

The dark lord  ( no, not Sauron)  agrees, but only if she  proves her self. 

Naturally. 

To be continued.

Also naturally.  

Writer\artist : Skottie Young. 

Colors : Jean Francois Beaulieu.

Letters : Nate Piekos.

Notes : *  The island isn't actually named that, it's not named at all. I just thought it was fitting.  

Review :

I hate fairyland is back  ! Oh yes  !

And it's a  bloody ongoing (  or  maxi series  )  now  !

That's  a neat trick  when the  main character is dead  isn't it  ?

Oh, off course Gertrude isn't dead  ! 

Let's  find out  how she undeads her self in  I Hate Fairyland 4 shall we  ?

Get back here  !

As it turns out, she isn't  really dead at all, just looking a tad scruffy. 

Part of the  fairyland  spell that  protects  guests. 

Normally I would find this a rip off and cop out, but for this series I don't mind too much, even if Young  is pulling that trick a bit to often  in these pages.

And Gertrude is getting healed a bit too easily. 

Hopefully after the first arc is over, this will be changed up  but we will have to adopt a wait and see approach for that. 

Mostly because I don't have any of the new issues as of yet. 

Anyway  !

The majority of issue  4  is recapping the plot and the  Queens eeeeeevil plot, 

such as it is. 

In the case of two guests, who ever  reaches the key first  will  be returned to their world, while the other  guest becomes  a resident of Fairyland. 

And, we all know where this is going don't we  ?

Loses the protection  spell. 

Which is what Queenie is banking on, so she can  finally kill Gertrude.

With extreme prejudice. 

And extreme slowness no doubt.

Gertrude  has her own  ideas about this situation, most of which are probably unprintable. 

Anyway as Happy is  going on her  quest of questness, which is going disconcertingly  easy for her.  (  Hmmm, is it  rigged ? Probably ! ) 

Gertrude  goes on a quest of her own. 

To  become the apprentice of  Darekth Deaddeath !  The  esident eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil, ..ahem of Fairyland. 

We end with  lord  Deaddeath  agreeing to  lend his powers to Gertrude, 

but only  AFTER  she  proves her self. 

Because isn't that  the way it always goes  ?

Well as far as, I Hate Fairyland goes,  issue 4 is a bit off a disappointment.

Off course after the  cliffhanger of  3  and the major tease of the cover i have,  it cant be anything  BUT  disappointing. 

It also is a bit of a  holding pattern, telling us things we already  know  or  repeating  things. 

As such it's a bit of a good  mid way point or  jumping on  point.

But  as  part  4  of a  5 part storyline, it  is somewhat disappointing.

The manic energy  seems to be  gone a bit. 

Thats not to say its not a perfectly criomulent  issue.

It is that,  but  there is nothing  in issue  4  that  couldn't be covered in issue  3,  save for that  cliffhanger and  tease of a cover. 

As it is,  issues 3 and 4 could have been  combined in to one issue.

And I Hate Fairyland would have been  quite a taut little  four parter.

There is stil the fairly amusing  juxtaposition of Happy's rather easy going  quest, through a wonderland proxy and all the  twisted little parodies that come with  wringing  out  fairy tale clichés.

And Gertrude's  dark  blood soaked  fable parallels,  or disgusting  in the case of the snotties.

And lord Darkdeath is a fairly amusing  parody of all the Dark Lords, equally amusing is how  easily he is willing to  listen to Gertrude.

But  issue 4 is still very  much a holding pattern.  

But not too worry there will be  MORE fairlyand shenanigans soon  !

Lets hope issue 5  will do better.