Robyn Hood in Cult of the Spider-Queen

Robyn Hood in Cult of the Spider-Queen

Zenescope Entertainment 2021

Written by Joe Brusha

Illustrated by Babisu Kourtis

Coloured by Juan Manuel Rodriguez

Lettered by Taylor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios

People are going missing in Manhattan. When Robyn investigates these strange disappearances she discovers that they are rumored to be tied to the Mysterious Spider Cult. The further Robyn digs into the cult's activities the more dangerous she realizes they are. And at the center of their web may well be the most terrifying threat she has ever faced...the deadly and evil Spider Queen.

I don’t know about anyone else but if this Cult of the Spider Queen is located in the sewers or below the sewers in the abandoned train stations then how have we not heard of them before this. Better yet just how many of Robyn’s foes live there and yet don’t know each other? It has to be getting ridiculously tight down there and it’s not like there’s an endless amount of tunnels either the rich utilised them and therefor they don’t go throughout the entire city. Joe can’t just shove em down there for the sake of having them be somewhere, there has to be a rhyme and reason behind it, where they are and how they got there.

The story itself is being told pretty well. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented nicely. I love the set-up for this and how we get to see Smitty again thanks to Peyton and her assistant and I have to say that I am very much enjoying this relationship the women are developing. Being a Public Defender means Peyton doesn’t have a lot of free time on her hands and honestly I like the whole idea here. The characterisation is spot on and it’s nice to see. The pacing is great and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story, it’s players and setting up what I hope is new arc this becomes a classic Robyn outing.

With how this is being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge and other grow stronger we see some classic work. I do wish Robyn hadn’t found the cult so quickly, a night or two searching would’ve been better and more realistic and only a page or two more would’ve been good a lot of reasons. The way we see the story’s ebb & flow created through how everything works together is solid.

The best part, of waking up is Peet’s in your cup, of this whole book are the interiors! I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if the linework isn’t exquisite and how the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create some of the most mindbogglingly brilliant detail work we’ve ever seen! There are little things, like Peyton putting her hair behind her ear, to the much larger moments and seeing that webbing come out yeah wow, gross, nasty, unable to look away and it’s frakkin brilliant. The composition within the panels and how we see the backgrounds come into play bringing us depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the book is beyond marvellous. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a brilliant eye for storytelling. The colour work is divine! How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows us a spectacular eye for and understanding of how colour works.

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Oh my goodness the creativity and imagination we see is superb. Now if we can get a writer who understands how to write better this would’ve been one of if not the best book out this week. As it stands the interior artwork alone is well worth the price of admission and it’ll change how you see Robyn Hood and Zenescope.