Review by Roy Boyd
Nottingham 1: The King’s Ransom introduced William de Wendeval – our tale’s Robin Hood – as well as Marian and a band of forest-dwelling outlaws going up against the evil Prince John and his equally nasty sidekick, Sir Hugh de Morville. Sir Hugh fills the role normally occupied by the Sheriff of Nottingham, because the wrinkle in this iteration of the oft-told tale is that our hooded outlaw hero actually is the Sheriff of Nottingham.
The title of The Hunt refers to Sir Hugh’s pursuit of Canon William Langland, our hero’s uncle, and the Regent’s private secretary. He’s been feeding his nephew news about the political situation. Busted, he has to disappear. He elects to do that by demoting himself to a simple friar, and adopting the name of the pigeon he used to send secret messages to his nephew: Tuck.
William has a showdown with Sir Hugh, and matters are resolved to a degree, though there’s clearly still plenty of scope for more of this story, and a third volume – Robin – is on the way. Interestingly, although the back cover of this and the previous book call our main man Robin Hood, no one has actually used that name or called anyone Robin yet.
Benoit Dellac’s art is again underwhelming. There’s undoubtedly real talent here, and the odd panel is impressive, but far too much just looks uninspired and lazily laid out, and action scenes are still confusing. The same is largely true of the colouring. It’s atmospheric and works well on individual scenes, but there’s not enough variety. For example, the trees are almost all the same shade of green in the forest scenes, which just looks flat.
Writers Vincent Brugeas and Emmanuel Herzet keep things moving, though their plot doesn’t really offer anything fresh beyond the identities. While it might be mildly interesting to have Robin played by the man that’s usually the villain, it ceases to be the case if the antagonist’s role is just filled by another person. It’s not really enough to justify another version of a tale that’s been told many times before. Perhaps a straightforward rendition would have been better, or a story that deviated from the original template more than this does. Much like the first volume, this doesn’t really set the heather – or whatever grows in Sherwood Forest – alight.
