By Dustin Cabeal

Zenescope needs to decide if it’s actually trying to get new readers or if this reboot was just for their current crop of supporters because this first issue felt like an attempt at both. I say attempt because it didn’t really succeed at either. There was this overwhelming sense of being nudged while reading the book. As if someone wanted to tell me, “this is a clever throwback to how the first series started.” The problem being, I didn’t read the first series, I’m not going to read it, and I just wanted something to enjoy in this first issue.

The premise, as is recapped at the front of the book and in the dialogue proceeding, is that Skye Mathers as taken over for the dead Sela Mathers. Sela was the Snow White looking character of the Grimm Universe in case you never knew her name. Now Skye has a book and needs to figure out how it works and bam… she’s teleported to a Werewolf situation. It’s a pretty boring story and has an expected ending.

I give it up to Zenescope for not only keeping their flagship title going for as long as they have but then also figuring out how to build a universe around it when it clearly wasn’t set up that way initially. It’s just that… I don’t care. I don’t care about the characters or the conflict. It all feels like it’s been done before and better and there’s nothing new here for me to enjoy. A woman is fighting werewolves while trying to figure out her magic book… did I describe this series or anything else with these elements? I wanted to try and care, but it’s just not there. It’s painfully average, and I just don’t waste time with comics like that. It’s not so bad that it’s fun and it never has that pop of greatness to keep going.

Zenescope as a company has improved its standard of art. I would even argue that their overall standard has surpassed Dynamite who still has a couple of series each month that phoned in. It’s not all cheesecake either which used to be their bread and butter. Without that, though, they seem to have lost their voice and desperately need to find a new one.

If you’re just into Zenescope’s style, then go for it and grab this new series. If like me, you were hoping they’d grow and turn a new corner… keep hoping, but this ain’t it. Grimm Fairy Tales #1 is just more of the mundane, with average writing, lackluster characters and better than average art. If that excites you, then I envy you, because it doesn’t excite me.

Score: 2/5

Grimm Fairy Tales #1
Writer: Joe Brusha
Artist: Ediano Silva
Colorist: Ivan Nunes