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Chronicles Of Legion Volume Four: The Three Faces Of Evil

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    Ian Jane
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  • Chronicles Of Legion Volume Four: The Three Faces Of Evil



    Chronicles Of Legion Volume Four: The Three Faces Of Evil
    Released by: Titan Comics
    Released on: August 5th, 2015.
    Written by: Fabien Nury
    Illustrated by: Mario Alberti, Zhang Xiaoyu, Tirso, Eric Henninot
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    The story so far has chronicled the tale of Vlad Tepes Dracula and his brother Radu, who have become immortal and who have developed the ability to transfer their consciousness between bodies. In the Russia of 1812: Vlad commandeered the body of a French soldier named Kholya while attempting to find Radu who has sired a child to a woman against the law that governs immortals. Cut to South America in 1531 where Doí±a Gabriella de la Fuente succumbs to her love for a man named Martin. This is a problem why? Because he's the illegitimate son of her husband, Hernan Cortes. Radu has taken it upon himself to do away with the settlers and get them out of the way. Fast forward to the London of 1885. Victor Douglas Thorpe has taken out those who have schemed to blackmail him and made an example out of them. He's also sent off Esther, who is pregnant with his child, off out of the city with enough money to support herself in hopes that this will allow him a new start…

    It's a complex and multilayered story that brings us to this fourth and final volume entitled The Three Faces Of Evil which takes us to London a few decades later in 1896 where an author working on a certain book about Vlad Tepes is having trouble with his publisher, a man who works for Mr. Thrope, with whom he meets. They discuss the intricacies of vampirism, and Thorpe assures him the book will be published but makes no promise as to curing the man's syphilis.

    In South America, Radu has managed to exert his control over everyone. A warrior woman named Gabriella approaches Radu making it past the mountain of corpses that litter the entrance to his chambers. She wants to save her lover Martin but it's too late, he's dying - she kisses him, the kiss of death and also the kiss of immortality. From here we see Vlad talk to a blind old sage about his conflict with his brother, about how to overcome that problem. They mix their blood and their chess game takes on a strange, supernatural form. Cut to Spain, 1547, we learn who Dona Gabriella learned of the death of Hernan Torres leaving his widow quite an inheritance. In 1917, we learn of Wilhelm Canaris, how an agent named Victor is out to get him and why. A man named Varese knows where he is but as those who pursue Canaris close in on him, a trap is set, and all of this ties into what Thorpe has been doing and a lost love he still yearns for, a woman he's by chance reconnected with.

    And it all comes down to that chess game… a bloody, horrible mess of a chess game.

    This fourth and final volume of the Chronicles Of Legion series doesn't necessarily make for light reading, but it is quite rewarding if you're willing to invest the time and concentration required to get the most out of it. The story moves throughout the centuries, from Napoleonic Russia to the Spanish takeover of South America to Victorian era London and back again, which makes it one that requires a bit more out of the reader than your average book. That said, the way that the story unfolds here is not only clever and effective but frequently surprising and consistently engaging. Fabien Nury's script is literate it's flat out high brow in spots, taking centuries' worth of European culture and folk lore and whittling all of that down into a story that deals not just with the horrors of vampirism but with a much stronger, more relatable terror - family. As identities shift and centuries pass, the two brothers that are the central characters here evolve while those around them grow up, age, and die. There's a 'circle of life' thing going through this series that is pertinent, contrasting in interesting ways with the fact that both Radu and Vlad are, for better or worse, immortal.

    As strong as the script is, however, it's the art that really draws you in. With four different artists on board you'd think that the different styles might result in some jarring transitions but that's not the case here. Mario Alberti, Zhang Xiaoyu, Tirso and Eric Henninot all have enough in common with the way that they illustrate their respective segments that this always feels like parts of the same story, but at the same time there are enough differences that you can easily tell when we've shifted from one era to the next. It's a neat experiment, and a very successful one too. Great detail, fantastic use of color, and some absolutely beautiful backgrounds make this run a feast for the eyes from the opening page to the last.

    This isn't a book for the capes and cowls crowd. It doesn't move particularly quickly and it isn't always easy to digest. But if you appreciate comics as art as much as you do entertainment and can allow yourself the time it takes to get wrapped up in this world, a trip through The Chronicles Of Legion is a voyage well worth taking.








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