Once & Future, Vol. 1 Review

Writer: Kieron Gillen / Artist: Dan Mora, Tamra Bonvillain / Boom! Studios There is something intrinsically appealing about a retelling or reinterpretation of a familiar myth. The stories we often learned in our childhood imprint on us and become a benchmark, a standard, a constant reference. Putting aside for just a moment the Eurocentric nature of my middle school and high school curriculum, I do have a fondness for Arthurian legend: King Arthur and the Round Table, the exploits and endeavors of brave knights fighting for their liege. Which is why I was so interested when I heard about Kieron Gillen providing his own iteration of the story with Once & Future.

Once & Future checks a lot of boxes when it comes to a story that I’m willing to invest in immediately: dark subversion of familiar tale, an examination of legacy within a familial context, and a predominantly fantasy facade with accents of horror. The opening of the volume has a sort of classic film vibe, where a merchant shows his wares to an interested customer, only to find that the said customer will not be paying in the conventional way and that said customer is almost certainly a bad person. Gillen, alongside Mora’s illustration and Bonvillain’s colors, set the dark tone of the series right out of the gate. Then he immediately pivots to a much calmer scene: a nursing home featuring one of two protagonists, Bridgette. Bridgette is listening to the news with the rest of the residents before she hears a s…