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The genre of high fantasy can be a prickly discipline now . After all , having intoxicated from the well of Tolkien for the majority of the last century , it can be hard for fledgling floor to make an original - seeming creation in the midst of a fantasy setting , and even if succeeding at that to stick the landing of a proper closing , as HBO’sGame of Throneshas demonstrated .
However , DC ’s Black LabelseriesThe Last Godmanages to go against this vogue in a quite new fashion : all the tropes and tasselsof high fantasy remain , an overpowering military unit of darkness , a ragtag set of warriors hold fast in fellowship to stand against it and all manner monstrous beasties and exotic races . But , rather than celebrating these storytelling machine , The Last Godholds a mirror up to them and reminds the reader what these figure of speech often represent : a harsh reality of hypocrisy , lie , sexism and racial strife .
have-to doe with : THE LAST GOD ’s Fantasy World come To Dungeons & Dragons
The creation of writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson with art by Riccardo Federici , The Last Godrepresents the first part of Johnson’sFellspyre Chronicles , a astray - ranging storycentered in the magical land of Cain Anuun . The Last Godfocuses primarily on Queen Cyanthe and her two separate quests 30 eld apart to the fabled Black Stair on the edge of the world for subdue the the Last God , known as Mol Uhltep , the tiddler of the abysm . The first quest William Tell of how her original band of heroes convened to battle the god ’s Plague of Flowers , which kills all in its route before transforming them into bloodthirsty monstrosities conduct to her and her husband , Tyr , being top king and queen and their party celebrated as mankind - save heroes . The second take blank space upon the return of the Plague of Flowers , which destroys the city of Tyrogoland , let out this premature caption to be a sham , which seems tooriginate from King Tyr himself . This plain off Cyanthe ’s desperate pursuance to end the immorality she let escape on her late pursuit alongside Eyvindr , a striver who was preach to get wrecking to Tyr ’s kingdom , and a new , colored shape of hardly - hinge adventurers .
What Johnson seems to be illustrate with his double - story is that not only are the myths of yore these fantasy quest are based upon belike built upon half - truths and lies in their own world , but more presciently that the fantasy tropes themselves in these genre tarradiddle , whichhave captured so many imaginationsover time , are ground in tangible - globe racism , sexism and great power fantasies . This conceit plays itself out prison term and prison term again throughout the story , as Cyanthe ’s past opine heroism is brought to cheek to face with the very real consequences of her company ’s callousness and failure . A proud fairy and virginal warrior in the present , Cyanthe ’s younger ego is register to be a dupe of Tyr ’s chauvinism and her father ’s domineering control . While her married man Tyr speaks of high-minded notions such as emancipation of all slave , the succeeding sequences show this to be nothing more than that , and paint him as more of a common bandit than a heroic warrior - king .
Even more pertinent comment comes in the descriptor of the Aelves , a golden - skinned race of primary magic wielders closely related to humans who carry on a heritage of hate and fear against the race of man for inhumanity long past tense which prevail to the present mean solar day , even after they allied with Tyr following his suppose defeat of the Last God . Yet even so , the “ King of the Ferrymen ” , the Aelve loss leader Veikko is disclose to have allowed the systematic murder of her own people so as to maintain her alliance with the thaumaturgy - wielders of men known as the Eldritch Guild . Heroes and freak are two sides of the same coin in this world , and often the great the hero , the more flagitious the monster .
Perhaps no better example of this storytelling technique occur in the recent issue # 8 , which features the companionship of the past times meeting one of their supposed fabled members Jorunn of the Dwarrow people . Though say to be close allies with Cyanthe in songs and legends , the fagot inform her party that , in actuality , the dwarrows were sinister and mercantile , with Jorunn ( now transformed into a elephantine flaming animal ) simply being a charter guide . What ’s more , the exchange the original family made with the dwarrows to gain passage to the Black Stair turn out to be a accelerator for revilement within the dwarrows , who used the charming artefact they received to enslave and excruciate the backwash of wizardly Harlan F. Stone people known as the Djorruk , eventually leading to their the end of all of their hoi polloi .
The substance is clear : even in macrocosm where trick , mystery and all manner of enchanted beasts and terrifying monsters dwell , people would still lie down and cheat and act the crew in ordering to maintain their own major power and the image of their own sanctity . The real cosmos that fostered Tolkien and his literary genre - continue heirs is not so different . The yesteryear may have seemed like a good , more kindly epoch , but the truth these phantasy misrepresent was more banal than all that , and the filament of sexism , racism and power - fantasy that fed their way into those stories are even more ostensible today than they ’ve ever been . So , in using these image in this way , concluded with a body - repugnance inducing magical curse , Johnson is drawing a direct parallel between how we get to understand the past in the very real present , free from aggrandizing fantasy , and the struggle his eccentric go through in the realm of Cain Anuun .
A gripping and tightly - told philosophic laugher through fantasy , The Last God#8is on sale now wherever funny books are trade .
Next : THE LAST GOD : fit The Ancient Deities of DC ’s New Fantasy Epic
