Miss Truesdale and the Fall of Hyperborea #4 // Review
The Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra has given Margaret the title. She's got something deeper, though. She's got a connection with the past and a dragon to slay. It's going to be quite dangerous, but it's going to be a hell of a lot more powerful than anything she might run into in a later life as her journey comes to an end in Miss Truesdale and the Fall of Hyperborea #4. Writer Mike Mignola wraps up his four-part mini-series with a bittersweet final issue with artist Jesse Lonergan. It's a warm and wistful triumph for artist, writer, and title character.
She's being hounded by a dragon. And somewhere in the 19th century, she's also being plagued by restlessness. There was a dragon in Hyperborea at another time long before antiquity. She had a battle axe and a hell of a lot of bravery to face a predator that might have been as big as a mountain. Slay the dragon, and she's a hero. What could be more noble? She's not going to have to face the monster alone. She might have to face the rest of eternity alone, though. Perhaps it would be a small price to pay.
Mignola spins a poetic ending to a striking fantasy story that speaks to something deeper than the surface and might go far deeper into the nature of heroism than many stories manage in a dozen issues or more. It's a very powerful progression. There truly isn't very much to the story. It's simple and well-framed. There's a kind of minimalism about Mignola's overall approach to the story that isn't shared by many other big works of pop fiction in the sword and sorcery genre. So often, fantasy is bogged down in so many details and arcane elements of political intrigue between gods and kings and things. Mignola keeps it simple and makes it memorable.
Lonergan's visual style steers clear of heavy detail AND clean lines. There's a great deal of shadow that is contrasted against long, empty stretches. Quite often, the visuals of the story feel vague and indistinct, but there's a powerful sense of form and motion shooting around the page that fully embraces the conflict between hero and monster in big, powerful movements and percussive blows. A greater sense of detail may have allowed Lonergan a bit more of a sense of contrast in size between the warrior and the dragon she's fighting, but it may have compromised the sweeping feeling of action that shoots across the page.
Mignola and Lonergan deliver a primal ending to a simple fantasy story that has one foot firmly planted in a more conservative reality somewhere in the nineteenth century. It's a fun fugue of a dream that casts itself across the page and vanishes into nothingness by the end of the final panel. It's too bad that there isn't a bit more to what writer and artist are putting on the page. With just a bit more complex conflict, the victory and tragedy at the chapter's end could have been a bit more powerful.
