Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Writer: Troy Brownfield
Artist: Fritz Casas
Release Date: 11th June 2014

Supposedly, Blood Queen is loosely based on the real life “Blood Countess” Elisabeth Bathory, but this first issue has no major similarities to that famous tale.  It’s still early days though. Instead, it’s a fairly straight up medieval fantasy tale, that feels like cross between Matt Wagner’s Madame Xanadu series for Vertigo and the Weis/Hickman Dragonlance novels. No bad thing in my book.

When the King and Queen send for a healer to cure their sick baby, a young woman is sent instead, one who’s powers already eclipse her older mentor. She soon discovers witchcraft at work and from there the story takes a more supernatural turn.  It’s excellent stuff, with writer Troy Brownfield creating a believable fantasy world, one that you can imagine has a real history and is populated by actual people. Fantasy comics seem to be a hard sell, but this one, if given room to breathe could blossom into something pretty special.

Oh and the first arc is called Reign In Blood, after the Slayer album. Extra thumbs up just for that alone.

Rating: 4/5.

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The writer of this piece was: Jules Boyle
Jules tweets from @Captain_Howdy