Broken Frontier

The classic story of '"The Nutcracker" finds its way to the Zenescope world and mixes it all up with the Holiday cheer and good tidings for all?

Sela is biggest link across the board  of all the Grimm Fairy Tales that Zenescope has been handing out to fans of fairy tales and comics alike. Tonight she finds herself at a Christmas party of the high school where she is a history teacher. She meets up with David, the anthropology teacher, and gets a nutcracker as a present. Nobody knows from whom exactly, but when Sela is drugged and transferred to a magical place, the nutcracker comes alive as Prince Erik. Erik saves her from human-sized rats who bear swords. Erik explains to her that her magical Book of Fairytales is one of the last doorways to the magical realm and that evil forces are conspiring to get that power and take over the real world, using the magical creatures from that other realm.

Erik takes Sela to a castle where a huge Christmas tree filled with nutcrackers as ornaments resides. Erik awakens all nutcrackers, and as the rat-forces, led by the Rat King, set out to swarm the castle, Erik's own army fights to overcome overwhelming odds and in the end...the good guys win!

This is a happy story, which is good considering the season and its overall message. Writer Joe Brusha however did not stop there and took some nice twists and turns to add to the story and moreover, add to the overall plan he has with the complete Grimm Fairy Tales franchise. When the Grimm Fairy Tales first came out Zenescope was setting up the stage and "merely" created fairy tales with a twist. But during the course of the series, more and more magical pointers and hints were handed out and a Zenescope Universe was created.

In this pivotal Christmas edition, more and more story elements are told that will be surely weighing heavy on future issues. The conclusion of this story does let the reader know that it will be continued in Grimm Fairy Tales #45 and Brusha does indeed create a nice cliffhanger, leaving however the main story as a one-shot as well.

I have to take my hat off to Zenescope for trying to make a difference in comics. They do not strive to copy the success of DC/Vertigo's Fables. They add cheesecake to every issue and nevertheless manage to tell entertaining long-term storylines with good to great artwork and with amazing coverwork.