By d. emerson eddy — Dan Mora should be a household name. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating. He has an incredible style that gives you hints of artists like Greg Capullo and Sean Gordon Murphy, an attention to iconic shapes similar to Mike Mignola, Bruce Timm, and Alex Toth, and an approach to shading that reminds me a bit of Gil Kane and Joe Kubert, resulting in a look that is unmistakably his own. A mix of clean-lined iconic characters and a bit of dirt and grit that makes it work for both ordinary humans as well as more fantastical horrors and monsters. This has consistently made him a boon for other BOOM! Studios titles like Klaus, Hexed, Go Go Power Rangers, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and now it’s happening again in Once & Future #3. 

Mora's character designs for the series are compelling. From the relative normalcy of Duncan, the manic energy of his hard as nails Gran, the almost Germanic Aryan cues you get from Elaine—the blonde hair and blue eyes variety to almost give a visual shorthand for her representation of a racist and nationalistic ideal — and the horror of Arthur. When added to the humor and pacing of the action scenes and emotive reaction panels, Mora keeps the audience hooked through the artwork. The visual storytelling in this comic is thoroughly impeccable.

Tamra Bonvillain nicely enhances that line art with her colors, too. There are two main color themes at work in this story, a kind of unnatural green for the Arthur scenes and then a sombre blue as Duncan and his Gran try to regroup and plan a next step in trying to stop the madness from unfolding. It keeps things separate fairly nicely and gives an eerie feel to Arthur's doings. Ed Dukeshire contributes to this feeling as well with the word balloon choice for Arthur. It's jagged, irregular, with a balloon line and text color of green as well, in a different shape and size as the standard word balloons, setting it apart. Making even Arthur's speech feel unnatural.

Then we get to what's almost the secret weapon of this series, the characterizations that Kieron Gillen brings to the fore. While Mora is absolutely spot on for the physical appearances, Gillen creates in-depth, intriguing, and realistic characters here through the dialogue that just pull you in and refuse to let you go. Duncan is still clearly out of his depth in all of this. Though he's less of a doorpost now than he was when the story began, showing a nice growth, he's still a fish out of water trying to deal with how his world has changed. Our focal protagonist remains his Gran, who is funny as hell, rough around the edges, and the person you'd least expect to be a “monster hunter” just by looking at it. It just works so wonderfully.

I know I usually tend to look at beginnings, endings, or discrete stories, and that Once & Future #3 is smack in the middle of the first story-arc, but it's the kind of thing that you owe to yourself to read. It's a bit of a sleeper hit, coming seemingly out of nowhere, but the pedigree of the creators is phenomenal and the story is really something that you want to get in on. This is an intriguing reinterpretation of the myth of King Arthur, playing on some of the current political unrest in Britain making it fairly relevant topically, mixing in elements of traditional fantasy and monster-hunting storytelling, to give us something new and entertaining.

Gillen, Mora, Bonvillain, and Dukeshire seem to have found a perfect blend of plot, characters, and art with Once & Future #3 that deserves your attention. There's magic in this story.

Once & Future #3
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Dan Mora
Colorist: Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Price: $3.99

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d. emerson eddy is a student and writer of things. He fell in love with comics during Moore, Bissette, & Totleben's run on Swamp Thing and it has been a torrid affair ever since. His madness typically manifests itself on Twitter @93418.