2 out of 5

Here’s a baseline recommendation: don’t sell your product based on some promised “you won’t believe what’s coming!” factor; 99% of the time – and more accurately 99.9999% of the time – just the drop of the promise is enough to set you in the precarious position of having to now prove yourself against some imagined (i.e. impossible) ‘unbelievable’ incident.  The result?  There’s no way to compare, even if your mind-blowing whatever is actually effective at blowing minds.  Disappointment reigns supreme.  …Disappointment will reign even supremer if the hype was (intentionally or not) covering up something pretty dumb, and maybe the most supremest ever if it turns out hype was all you had.  No, Green Valley doesn’t fall into that last bucket, and it’s OMG TWIST isn’t dumb, but it’s a lot less unique than I think Max Landis’ Google-abilities suggested (the first issue packs in that “you won’t believe…” sales pitch via a Landis editorial in which he claims internet research came up nil for previous incarnations of some key idea), and the script is clearly jacked into this sense that we’ll be awestruck by any given cliffhanger.  Fine: the letters pages and sold-out prints prove that many readers were, but, uh, my experience with finding this fantasy exercise pretty standard (and eventually shallow) can’t have been unique.  It’s one of those stories in which, once you see the general direction it’s headed in, it can really only go one of a few basic ways.  So, yeah, I had no trouble believing what was coming.

Without spoiling what there is to be spoiled, Green Valley is about the once-badass Knights of Kelodia, who struggle to face a foe which may help them redeem themselves.  Their battle-worn pasts give them a sense of cynicism regarding claims of the foe’s magic and dragons, but the truth of what they face is a challenge to both their abilities and their beliefs.  It’s an acceptable setup for an adventure book, and there’s an admitted sense of homage to 80s light-hearted jaunts in a similar vein.  Issue 1 is mostly establishing character work, raising our Knights up and then bringing them down via a humbling defeat, and though Landis’ Whedon-like banter sort of rankles, he reigns in the too-cool strutting most of the time a delivers a solid issue.  Issue 2 begins to sprinkle in some of the promised mystery, though, as mentioned, it’s not quite as intriguing as it’s presented to be, that is: issue 1 (sans mystery) had me more interested in issue 2 than 2 did in 3.  And the shoe drops in issue 3, after which we start rolling downhill through predictable schemes and cookie-cutter character arcs.  And if (as the editorial comments claim at one point) the series has examples of “important female characters,” (that’s paraphrased) then Landis really is stuck in the 80s – this is 100% a boys’ adventure, with damsels in distress masquerading as tough-talkin’ prizes for our knights to win.

And the final “twists,” while, I’d think, attempts to seal the deal on the whole happy-go-lucky 80s vibe, rather (for me) just undermined any emotional goodwill the story had earned, which was already in decline thanks to the soap opera dialogue and illogical (in that they didn’t feel earned by the story) motivations.

Giuseppe Camuncoli is an intriguing artist, a dude whose work I’ve looked forward to since Pete Milligan’s work on Hellblazer some years ago, and Cliff Rathburn’s colors give the book a lush, stately feel.  It’s a bit more suited to the Knights stuff than some of the other story stuff, but the pages looked good either way.  And letterer Jean-Francois Beaulieu apparently contributed to the cover design work, which, although I wish it was a concept they’d varied a bit more, was smartly used to sync with the book’s core conceit.  That said, there were some very odd disconnects with story and art, in which dialogue sometimes didn’t match up with what’s depicted (“Don’t make me get off this horse,” he says, as he gets off his horse…) or Camuncoli downplays what seems like it’s supposed to be a point of focus in the panel.  These moments admittedly set me on guard to be “de-immersed,” so I was probably primed to be a bit annoyed by what I felt was the book’s unwillingness to actually do anything truly interesting with its premise.

Green Valley isn’t great, but there wouldn’t inherently have been anything wrong with its setup if the book had taken it easy on trying to take the narrative world by storm and just focused on telling its tale.  So here’s another baseline recommendation: a similar title started around the same time as GV – Lake of Fire.  Go read that instead.  Not only is it much more satisfying emotionally, but the creators are brave enough to put their twist right up front, and yet, magically, it manages to be jaw-dropping and surprising issue by issue.