Robyn Hood Annual: Invasion // Review
The Cult of Cthulhu is preparing the world for the rise of the elder god. There’s a hero who typically deals with this sort of thing with her arrows, but she’s going to need more than a little bit of help from more than a few others if she’s going to defeat the Starspawn. She gets exactly what she needs in Robyn Hood Annual: Invasion. Writer Joe Brusha works with a series of artists on a big, double-sized issue. Artists working on the book include Renato Rei, Giada Belviso, and Alessio Mariani. Color remains constant throughout the issue thanks to colorists Juan Manuel Rodriguez and Maxflan Araujo.
The most interesting thing at the Shedd Aquarium isn’t being exhibited. It’s invading. Chicago PD isn’t exactly set up to handle the threat of the giant light purple monster with huge tentacles. They get the creature to leave before it can do much damage. That’s the good news. The bad news? The creature has taken over the mind of a Chicago police officer. She’s not alone. There are others being controlled all over the planet. Thankfully, there is a group of heroes who are getting together in Pennsylvania to sort things out.
Brusha’s plot structure moves things along swiftly. The opening scene in Chicago establishes what the heroes are up against. There’s a follow-up scene where they discuss how best to handle the monsters that are popping up all over the place. Then, in time-honored tradition, the heroes split up to best handle everything at once. At issue’s end, everyone swings back together for the big final fight scene. Robyn gets some of the best lines. The scenes with the other heroes can drag a bit in places, but their presence is needed to bring across the massive nature of the threat that the world is facing.
The split-up of the team gives the issue an episodic feel that works well with the long list of artists who are working on the book. Zenescope has put together a really good line-up for the issue with some impressively-framed action shots that all are given plenty of added depth and impact by colorists Rodriguez and Araujo. Robyn looks cool throughout the issue, but there are quite a few other impressive visuals. The big, final showdown has a massive Cthuloid Starspawn monster towering over Soldier Field in Chicago. A team of powerful warriors fights a massive demon at mid-field. They're like…the home team playing against the monster ON the midway.
There isn’t a whole lot to the character of Robyn. There isn’t allowed to be. She’s always being thrown into action, spouting fun lines of dialogue and battling some monster of some sort. There doesn’t really need to be a whole lot more to it than that, honestly. Brusha and company put together fun supernatural action that aims for a minimum of innovation in the interest of having fun with some gorgeous heroes. There’s certainly space on the comic book rack for that sort of thing.
