One of the ongoing criticisms made against Zenescope from readers and critics over time has been the lack of substance. Thankfully, the last three years of Grimm Fairy Tales has been fleshed out into a horror fantasy universe filled with spectacle and wonder. Filled with horrors that are cosmically intense and impossible to beat. Matched against the main characters – whose attractiveness could be best described at a level of stupidly hot women – but I’m not complaining.
A Dark Past Resurfaces – The Story So Far
‘Keres: Blood and Shadow’ continues the same tradition as it dives into the dark past of the well-endowed Goddess of Death. With Keres having nightmares involving old gods in the underworld, thanks to a cursed tome in her possession – she seeks out the talents of Henry Lovecraft. When she arrives at the spooky Lovecraft mansion, she is met with the expectation of her arrival by Lovecraft’s partner-in-crime, Spencer Holmes. Another stupidly attractive woman – if a hot librarian is your kink. Again, not complaining.
With Lovecraft indisposed, writer Joe Brusha treats us to a pseudo-tour of the Lovecraft’s dwelling, which sees us introduced to Erica Houdini – another partner-in-crime. Who is more familiar with Keres, than she, thanks to what she describes as stories and nightmares that have been told of Keres’s many adventures.
Enter the Lovecraft Mansion – New Allies and Old Enemies
After an awkward meeting, Spencer tells Erica to go fetch Henry, while she continues briefing Keres on recent events. It’s here that the reader will pick up certain familiarities between the characters. And you’d be right – as Keres has fought alongside them before “in places where reality is a nightmare and courage is all that remains.” It’s during this tour-de-force of their pasts via flashback montage – specifically that Spencer Holmes was the one to deliver Henry Lovecraft his birthright.
A birthright that saw him, Keres and Spencer – fight the untold minions of a dangerous foe, The King in Yellow, but despite the type of madness that would’ve driven most men insane – Henry survived. Now, with the tome causing Keres screaming nightmares, she’s come to Henry for help because the cosmic darkness is an area he’s all too familiar with.
As if on queue, Henry Lovecraft arrives through a portal, ominously updating Spencer that the darkness is contained. This leaves Keres feeling uneasy because no one knows better than her that you can never keep the darkness contained forever. Stoic as ever, Henry sits down to update them that the tome’s power is flaring and this is what allowed him to capture the thing in the cellar. But what he doesn’t know is why the tome is reacting now. Henry tells Keres of his research on the beings that plague her in her dreams. With Keres letting him in, informing him that the tome only shows her nightmares of things she cannot control. Lovecraft sees a kindred spirit in her as they are both cursed with the kind of knowledge that no person should ever possess.
When Reality Breaks – A Journey Into the Underworld
With the tome still communicating to her, Henry notices it’s causing Keres pain, and she begins to give in to its dark energies. Giving artists Hakan Aydin and Allan Otero the opportunity to show off as the world around Keres and Henry Lovecraft begins to warp. The library they’re in begins to shift and contort before the floor gives out from under them as the world between theirs and the underworld starts to breach. They fall for what seems like an eternity… where reality folds in on itself and Keres’ past is given permission to play out. A past where the dark mantle of Keres’ family is bestowed upon her as a child.
As Spencer and Erica struggle to bring Henry and Keres back from beyond the underworld, our two heroes awaken to a literal pit of hell filled with demonic chasms, brimstone and never-ending rivers of lava. As Keres stands confused at her surroundings and questions where they are, Henry reveals they’re in another underworld she’s never visited before. Consider that for a second. Imagine the horror Keres must be experiencing at this very moment. The terror of the goddess of death not knowing about secondary underworlds – or that in the space of a couple of sentences of dialogue, Joe Brusha has expanded the universe of Grimm Fairy Tales to possessing an unending supply of hell itself.
Meanwhile in the Cellar
With this going on, Spencer sends Erica down to the cellar to recover a seal that is the only way to shut down the rift the tome is causing. Still with me? As Erica crawls through the dark dungeon-like atmosphere of the Lovecraft cellar, we’re introduced to the dark thing that Henry alluded to earlier in the issue. A hideous malformed beast with claws and tentacles flailing around its multi-eyed hide. If I were Erica I’d be shitting myself.
This segues into the next scene seamlessly with Henry and Keres face-to-face with a demonic pitlord – complete with tentacles writhing around its limbs and torso and arcane tree trunks for legs. The confrontation reminds Keres of a time when she was younger and of what she had to become to dispatch the worst horrors imaginable. It’s this clarity that sees her easily dispatch the demon with focused wrath. Its entrails spilling out on the underworld’s trains. I never knew demons could have such gross green guts – but thanks go to colorist Robby Bevard for the display.
Meanwhile, in the cellar, Erica comes across a new challenge as she tries to get past the beast to the seal to return Henry and Keres from the underworld. Carving the thing in front of her down the middle, she seems victorious for a brief moment, only for each half of the beast’s hide to reanimate into individual life forms – lunging at her – throwing her to the ground. With their razor-sharp teeth bared and poised to strike for the killing blow.
As Henry and Keres walk across a precarious mountain-shaped bridge, they talk of the whispers the tome utters. How can she ever shut them out because they never stop? How is she cursed to hear what others cannot? Near the top of the mountain, a multi-headed demon strikes at them. A demon that resembles one she faced many years before. One that caused her to flee for her life all those years ago. When she tells Henry they must be free, he urges her on, to confront her fears so they can finally escape the underworld.
As Keres begins to carve away its many tentacles, it feels like our two heroes are going to win, but the tentacle-like tongue overwhelms her, separating her from Henry as he urges her to give in to the darkness. As she’s pulled down into it, Keres begins to hear the screams of the many souls she’s condemned to death and damnation. She begins to see a vision of Father Time, the god who she and her powers are bound to, but he begins to fade into darkness. Then finally, the tome whispers to her, urging Keres to shape the weapon from within.
Except it’s not the tome. It’s her mother. A flashback of her mother instructing her in the ways of a reaper. Two paths lay in front of her. She offers Keres a choice: choose the scythe or the sword. The scythe which was an inheritance for taking on the mantle of the next reaper.
Power without Purpose – Keres Finds Her True Weapon
It’s here she realises that back then, all those years ago, she chose the easy path: power without purpose. But all this time, there was a power inside her, at the edge of her being – and it was time to bring that power – that sword – to the surface.
As the sword takes shape, it imbues Keres with a newfound source of immeasurable power. Carving through a horde of writhing tentacles, Keres launches herself at the beast, with Henry following. As he continues blasting his gun at the thing’s eyes, Keres goes berserk mad and continues slashing at the hide of this beast – causing it to fall.
With the dual-beasts in the cellar continuing their assault on Erica, she manages to secure the seal before lobbing an oil lantern at them. And thanks to some fancy footwork, endurance and even more impressive aeronautical gymnastics – she avoids what’s to come – as the resulting inferno causes their skin to melt before they finally explode. With the seal secured, she begins to ascend out of the cellar, back to Spencer.
As Henry Lovecraft and Keres take in the serenity of a barren underworld overwhelmed by fire and darkness, Spencer communicates to them from beyond preparing them for an imminent evacuation. With a fresh horde of winged demons approaching them, Keres talks of how they’ll never stop coming for her. But he reassures her, saying she now has a weapon to fight them with, one even more powerful than her scythe. As a beacon opens from the heavens to return them to Lovecraft’s mansion, Keres considers Henry’s advice. His words give her strength to confront the darkness that is to come.
Final Verdict: Does ‘Keres: Blood and Shadow’ Deliver?
With the five of them back in the mansion, Henry removes his mask to reveal a new scar. Keres doesn’t mention it as she witnesses the scar move like it has a life of its own. Like its own hidden darkness. As they congratulate each other on a job well done, Keres reveals her new sword, and Henry reminds her that the forces of darkness won’t stop coming. How the visions she was having were warnings of what was to come. Henry notices a change in her. That Keres had evolved from a reaper that was being controlled by the tome to the bearer of the tome. A tome that now acts as her warning signal – because when the whispers start again – she knows the forces of darkness are on their way.
