The Rat Queens are finally back! And in attempt to save the comic from a controversial series of events, creator Kurtis J. Wiebe attempted a, sort of, reboot. Rat Queens is a raunchy, comedic series that features adventurers Hannah, Dee, Violet, and Betty, in a mock Dungeons & Dragons world. In the first two volumes of this comic series, our four main adventurers (sort of) saved their home of Palisade from the spawn of N’rygoth, an ancient god who Dee once worshipped, albeit destroying much of Palisade in the process, while the third saw Hannah’s storyline diverge from the others as she attempted to rescue her step-father after he was arrested by the Mage University that she'd attended. We’ve learned a lot about these characters, their backstories, their personality quirks, their hopes and fears, and some of the past volumes really delved deeply into hard-hitting issues… and then there’s this volume. To give those who don’t know some insight into the controversy surrounding Rat Queens, we have to go back to the very first volume. Originally the artwork for the series was done by Roc Upchurch, a comic veteran, who (in my opinion) captured the series and the characters the best. Unfortunately, Upchurch proved to be a bit of an asshole. He was involved in some domestic violence, and was quickly taken off the Rat Queens project, and rightly so. In his place came Stjepan Šejíc and then Tess Fowler… neither of which did a really good job at capturing the feel and look of Rat Queens. Fowler eventually left after allegations that Wiebe was trying to bring Upchurch back, and it seemed like Rat Queens was doomed. This latest volume of Rat Queens, the fourth in the series, is illustrated by Owen Gieni, who, of all the replacement artists, does the best job at capturing Upchurch’s original design and style. And in fact, the artwork is at it’s best here since Upchurch’s original style. Unfortunately, the artwork was my favourite part of this volume. Volume 4 kind of picks up in a weird place. It almost ignores the ending of volume 3, despite there being hints that relate back to the first three volumes - for example Palisade is still a mess and some of it’s denizens have become worshippers of N’yrgoth. Wiebe has addressed fans and stated that the new volume is tied to the others, and that we’ll have everything answered in time, so I guess we’ll just need to be a little patient before the dots get connected for us. While it was good jumping back into these characters, nothing… really… happened in volume 4. There wasn’t any character development, there weren’t any subplots, there was hardly a story. It was mostly just the Rat Queens (including their new Queen, Braga, the fan favourite transgender orc warrior) questing and drinking. Volume 4 is definitely not the strongest volume in this series. My personal favourite is the second, The Far Reaching Tentacles of N’rygoth. But it’s good to have the Rat Queens back, and hopefully this means we’ll see more of them in the future, and delve some more into their individual characters.
