Review by Ian Keogh

There’s been a lull since the brutal chaos supplied in Old English. Sure, Duncan’s been keeping his arm in, seeing to a few things in his role as knight and protector, but on the whole things have been quiet.

Quiet’s not what Once & Future is about, so Kieron Gillen skips that bit and begins again with Bridgette McGuire deciding it’s time to look for some clues. The renewed trouble began with her daughter hanging out with some racist thugs in Volume One, so why not hunt them down for some leads? Not many people actually go looking for right wing thugs, and while Duncan might have adapted to mystical threats, they’re not mystical. It doesn’t go well, but unpredictably so. There’s a neat touch to end this sequence also, as for a writer of Gillen’s stature just having a pub full of hateful bigots get theirs would be too easy. It happens, but concludes with a surprisingly touching moment on two accounts.

Drawing a grim estate pub outside Bristol is a different form of horror for Dan Mora to conjure up, but presumably the British writer supplied the American artist with suitably downbeat reference material. Either way, Mora brings it to such credible life you’d expect to find John Constantine hanging around in the background. When we head back to more mystical environments the astute use of shadow and light brings Mike Mignola to mind.

While Once & Future has been thrilling to date, enquiring minds may have been occupied with the matter of wider repercussions. One addressed is how the British authorities are taking to return of the supernatural and the consequent deaths. After two volumes of rather slim characterisation Rose develops a greater purpose, and we continue to see that myth or otherwise, a bullet to the head is problematical, which is a nice touch.

Considerable change is the order of the day as we reach the final pages. No sooner does someone seem to have the upper hand than the rug is pulled from under them, and you’ll want to head straight for Monarchies in the U.K.

With something this good, though, if you have the money why not consider the opening three volumes combined in hardcover as Deluxe Edition Book One?