Trade Paperback $14.95 from Vertigo/DC Comics
Writers: by Bronwyn Carlton and John Ney Rieber
Pencillers: Peter Gross, Mark Buckingham, Ryan Kelly and Hermann Mejia
Inkers: Vince Locke, Mark Buckingham, Dick Girodano, Ryan Kelly and Hermann Mejia
Colors: Gloria Vasquez, James Sinclair, Danny Vozzo and Alex Sinclair
Review by
We love the making of a king. Aristotle suggested the best stories fell into one of two camps: those in which the low were brought high, and those in which the high were brought low. The first is a fantasy; the second is a warning. We can take the warnings or leave them, but we love the fantasy.
In the United States we've had a fairly kingly executive since the beginning and we're always sure to concoct a good myth to support each President's rise. It helps if the hero were born in a log cabin (Lincoln,) but we'll settle for proving himself to a rich dad as a youngster by working in the oil fields (Bush).
Of course the most famous king in the western mind is King Arthur the Briton, whose story, involving both ends of Aristotle's thesis, is so familiar it must be born of some racial memory. The story of the boy who would be king has been told a thousand times since and probably a thousand times before.
Shakespeare never wrote an Arthur, oddly, (he also never wrote a Robin Hood we know of) but he spent an inordinate time with the issues of kingship. In his "histories" he gave us his Richards and his Henries, tragic characters all. In his comedies, though, his kings and rulers were imbued with magic and wisdom, such as the Doje of Venice, Prospero of Milan, or the most oddly perverse and yet wise, Oberon of Faerie.
I'm not sure we'd have high fantasy in the modern sense if not for Shakespeare's *Midsummer Night's Dream* and the novels of Walter Scott. The Vertigo comics series *The Books of Faerie* make an attempt at giving us older, darker conceptions of the world of faerie, but *Auberon's Tale*, the trade paperback, tells a king story and has Shakespeare written all over it. No Brit can ever escape the old man.
*Auberon's Tale* collects the issues of *The Books of Faerie* that give us the origins as it were of King Auberon, who will later spend his time engaging in daily hearth-war with the tumultuous Queen Titania. We learn here that he's lucky to have survived to adulthood.
*Auberon's Tale* starts where most kingmaker stories should, with regicide. In this case, it's the stupid and accidental, or at least flagrantly negligent, death of the King Magnus of Faerie, who thinks he's so powerful he can challenge his own Champion Troll to a joust. The body is still warm as the various power blocs in the Kingdom scurry for a foothold.
Faerie, it seems, is in trouble: the arrogant, ruling Faeries are dying out, but have a problem with mixing with other races like brownies, trolls and elves, whom they subjugate with varying degrees of harshness. Amid this sea of contention comes the first pretender to the throne, Huonnor, who has the allegiance of the trolls. But Magnus had a more direct descendant, a boy now being raised in the countryside by a lesser noble woman. The boy's name is Auberon, and Lord Windan, the King's chief advisor, thinks he could much more easily control a boy than Huonnor.
What follows is a string of lies, bloody and pitched battles, love affairs, and Machiavellian maneuvers so intricate that one senses even Machiavelli would need a scorecard. Suffice it to say that Auberon, very much a child, manages to become king. Except that immediately he starts acting like a king as best he can, the way a deer tries to use his legs, wobbly but with a sense that it's the right thing to do. And suddenly Auberon is not as easy to control as Windan thought, and the advisor is wondering how to get rid of the boy. The best part of the story is watching the boy king struggle with the creeping realization that no one he talks to can be trusted. The truth, the boy realizes, is that if he is ever to become king, he must make some decisions for himself. And that means making a few mistakes, and worse, making a few enemies.
*The Books of Faerie: Auberon's Tale* is an interesting story for fans of high fantasy types who prefer courtly intrigue to unicorns and riddles. This makes it a little on the mature side, not for its objectionable content but for the attention it requires. It deserves the attention. You won't see a king made this way any time again soon.