We return to the realm of Spera to find two conspirators, Kyle and Nole, lurking in a cave concealed in a waterfall. Kyle provides Nole with intelligence that he’s gathered on Princess Lono. The Princess, Kyle says, now has many protectors, including The Princess Pira, the warrior tabby Chobo, the fire spirit Yonder, and now Adel. Nole puts his hand to his sword hilt and remarks that Lono will have need of protection. Cut to the Princesses Lono & Pira, who are now sharing an adventure with Adel, the boy they met in Volume Two. Adel had said he would like to go on just one adventure with them, and here that promise is made good as they head for The Treasure of the Waterfall. H
The bulk of the first issue is the journey, and their foraging for food along the way. They find a very movable feast– the kind that fights back. While sampling insects and flowers, Pira finds a bug that is slightly larger than a house cat. Lono calls it cute, but Pira begins to tenderize it by punching it in the head. The bug’s house-sized mother seizes Adel. Pira charges it, but her sword is rebuffed by the giant bug’s chitinous foreleg. Yonder the fire spirit speaks in the language of animals or monsters to the bug, and the baby bug is traded for Adel’s life.
The issue ends as the adventurers arrive at the waterfall to discover first, that there is not any treasure but a sickly or possibly dead water spirit instead, and second, that their arrival was anticipated by Kyle and Nole, who now reveal themselves, their ill or good will postponed for issue two.
The remarkable thing about Spera is that the characters are so well conceived, and the setting so alive, that both work just as hard as Josh Tierney does to sell this world to the reader as a real place and not just another pretty fantasy landscape. We don’t read about Spera, we reside in Spera while we are reading.
The characters are immediately likable because they are not unimpeachable paragons of virtue and intellect. Rather than taking the usual tack in fantasy literature in which the author lets the protagonists in on all the secrets that are coming up, the heroes in Spera don’t have all the answers and are the last to understand the plot. They’re more reminiscent of Betty and Veronica than Hermione Granger or Luna Lovegood. The sensible one, Yonder, could easily take a Gandalf-like role and influence their decisions, but instead lets them make as many mistakes as they want to make. The villains, on the other hand, are calculating enough to be at the princesses’ destination long before they arrive.
The real prize to be had on this adventure is the new Archaia graphic novel, of which this first chapter is only the first taste. The previous Spera graphic novels were distributed on comiXology in two seven issue mini-series, and this issue is also available digitally now.
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