3 out of 5

King’s Road is an absolutely average fantasy tale – the kind of non-Disney, non-Pixar CGI flick you take the kids to when you’ve run through all the A-level flicks – which is rather surprising coming from the mind of Peter Hogan, who’s proven successful at taking fish-out-of-water concepts and giving them a lot of character and depth.  The roots are there, which may make KR a much better entry point when it’s just volume one of several (the last issues mentions more to come…), but as a standalone, the entertainment value offered in these three issues is held back by the wonder of whether or not this is all there is.

Here’s the pitch, which is pretty much all inclusive of the content as well: a suburban family is called back to the mythical land from whence they came so Dad can claim the crown and stop an impending war with a witchy adversary.  Where Hogan does find a unique way into this is by laying it all at our feet: the kids are new to this knowledge but the parents already know, and instead of toying around with ramping the fam up to the task, Hogan had the folks do their due diligence and prepare their children for battle via archery lessons and the like.  So after a few panels of explanation, things are in motion.  Narratively, it helps smooth out the believability of this transition by having it explained by a talking dog.  Alas, the battle comes to town before our troupe can go to it, and that’s sort of where King’s Road leaves us, with some interesting tidbits here and there but an otherwise primarily standard setup.

The first issue contains the DHP beginnings of KR, drawn and colored by Phil Winslade, who sets the tone for Staz Johnson and Douglas Sirois (the latter on colors) to take over for the series proper.  Winslade’s colors have this oddly sickly, faded quality to them, but his layouts are always jam-packed and dynamic.  By comparison, Sirois’ colors are preferred, much more earthy, and Johnson is absolutely up to the art task, although initially he’s a bit overly expressive with his panels in, perhaps, an attempt to match Winslade’s detail-heavy style.  But he levels out after an issue and definitely makes the book his own.

It’s true that if not for Hogan’s history, I might have passed on this title, as it doesn’t seem to offer much new at this point.  But that’s what a fanbase earns ya: some leeway.  So let’s see where this goes.