I just... what is this?
Really, what is this? What is it supposed to be? What was it trying to achieve? How did it become so bafflingly, badly written? Is it a sequel comic series, a reboot, or both? Because it will confuse the everloving heck out of both newcomers and people who have seen the original nineties cartoon. It's a nightmarish mess even in its own right.How did a 2024 "update" to a nostalgic cartoon end up so... terrible? As mostly obscure and forgotten as the original show was, it deserves far better treatment than this. Anything does! Even Dynamite's 'Rainbow Brite Volume 01' is better written and more accessible than this!
'Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders Vol. 1' is like a sequel to a five season TV show that nobody saw, that got edited, condensed, skipped over, and basically bashed and cut to pieces by executive meddling, in a decades-long development hell. This results in an unfocused, ADD-riddled, unmitigated disaster where too much happens in too short a time, with little breathing room and chance to absorb anything, and you can't get emotionally invested in what's going on, nor in the characters and their rushed, barely existent and later forgotten relationships with each other. The needed expository dialogue is either nonexistent, too little, too much, random, or jumbled and confusing. A ridiculous number of details, ideas and actions are added in, that are made to seem important when they are introduced... are then dropped entirely, or they are hurriedly tacked on after a long absence with little fanfare and importance. It's like reading the world's worst treasure hunt and puzzle - try to guess what detail in the story, what "plot point", and what passes for "character development", is important. Spoiler: almost nothing is important by the end. There is no point. Nothing matters. What a waste of time.
I mean for crying out loud, an apocalypse happens off-page in the middle of the book, with no buildup, no explanation, and in the end it is taken care of just as easily, the book not bothering to explain how the !&*$*! things turned back to normal so quickly, like nothing happened!
It is here where, hopefully for further context and understanding, I will mention my own history with the 'Princess Gwenevere' nineties cartoon. In the UK where I live it is called 'Princess Starla and the Jewel Riders' for some bizarre reason (why make even less of a connection to the Avalon legend?). I barely remembered it from when I was a very young kid, and I think I only saw a few episodes. Recently I watched its two seasons on YouTube, and it is... not good. I mean, it is harmless, and there are infinitely worse cartoons out there (like another nineties toy commercial, 'Sky Dancers', *shudders*), but it feels far too much like a leftover production to sell toys from the eighties, when in the nineties the standards for what is deemed children's entertainment had reached a much higher bar. Heck, some eighties cartoons are in fact funnier, more self-aware and engaging than 'Princess Gwenevere'. I can recall only a few funny, and human, moments and lines of dialogue, where effort seemed to be put in.
Still, I would rather watch the show over and over again than reread its too-little-too-much-too-late comic sequel that doesn't try to ease you into things.
As I stated at the beginning, 'Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders Vol. 1' will confuse readers who have not heard of or seen the near-thirty-year-old cartoon, and readers who have. It references events, arcs and developments for characters that did not happen in the show. How many years have passed in-universe since that ended? There are characters who are wildly, um, out of character and have seem to have gone through a dark arc, like Merlin, and characters who are given no development and hardly any page time, like poor Fallon (the only POC Jewel Rider (besides Josh, remember him?) is treated like a reluctant, begrudged afterthought yet again! And I thought this was a modern update!). Too much time is spent on Tamara and stupid Drake, and not enough focus is given to Gwenevere herself, when she's supposed to be the protagonist. Where is her heartfelt bond with her steed Sunstar, who also suddenly has no character? Why do we almost never see the Jewel Riders together in action? The cover lies! What was up with the monster attack on the fairies at the beginning? That isn't mentioned again. What the flipping heck is Tamara's cape attack? What happened to Tamara's baby animal friends? Why do Kale's dweasels only appear in two pages near the end and are discarded nonentities, and not comic relief?Where's Morgana? Did anyone working on this comic even see the cartoon before they made it, and put it to publishing?
It's all incredibly weird, and not in a good way. The incompetence on display is astounding.
Okay, to be fair, I will list the positives I could find:
The comic does make an attempt to expand on the lore of the cartoon. Not very well, and very haphazardly and spottily, mind you, but there is at least an attempt.
One focus and direction I did like, and that didn't drop the ball as far as a consistent planning and development goes, is the establishment of the relationship between Queen Adrianna and Lady Kale. It actually shows a relationship between the sisters, and their past, and how Kale may have become evil (no surprise that it's Merlin's fault), and Adrianna's depression and the depths of her grief at losing her beloved sister to the dark side. It's quite nice and refreshing to see, when originally there was literally nothing between the sisters. I think they only shared a single line of dialogue in the entire show, and very briefly. I mean come on, one sister is the queen of Avalon and the mother of the protagonist, and the other sister is the main villain and the aunt of said protagonist! The drama is right there! How could it have been ignored?! Give us something! The comic, on the other hand, does give us something, in terms of a tragic sisterly bond, and it is perhaps the only part in it where I felt a little emotional investment, and curiosity as to how it would go moving forward.
Additionally, it seems that Adrianna is now the queen's official, proper name, and is not Guinevere or Anya. And Merlin may be a sketchy, judgemental, faithless, not even secretly power hungry and diabolical, mean, irrelevant old duffer who caused Kale's desperation for validation and subsequent turn to power and evil to begin with, but let's try to be fair again: she's named after cabbage. Anyone would become a villain for that alone.
Tamara is an okay character, and the stronger written and most likeable out of anyone, unfortunately taking the development and spotlight away from Gwenevere.
Archie, Merlin's owl, has some funny dialogue; he is funny in a different way to how he is in the cartoon. He is less goofy and cowardly, and more sombre, stoic and sarcastic.
The artwork is colourful, bold, crisp, sharp, nice and manga-esque, without looking too much like an outdated gimmick.
Well, that's it. My lamentably negative review of 'Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders Vol. 1'. It is a shame because I adore all things Magical GirlsTM, and I want to give each of them a chance. I expect better from the genre nowadays, and from modern takes, reboots and retoolings of magical girl/girl power franchises - western and eastern, from the eighties, nineties and the 2000s. I mean, look at 'She-Ra and the Princesses of Power' and the IDW 'Jem and the Holograms' comics - the standards for "girls' shows" now are high and mighty. They are respectable, respected and taken seriously, and written well and passionately. These are examples of "updates", reintroductions and reinventions that came from people who are clearly fans of the original source material, and who saw the potential for expansion, for deeper lore, for heartfelt, clever and twisty writing. For more.
Whilst 'Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders Vol. 1' is potential wasted, and butchered. Something this messy, condensed, chopped up and put together using Pritt Stick actually has the gall to end on sequel bait. How a second volume could come to be after so much went horribly wrong here, I hate to imagine. I certainly won't be reading it.
I so wanted to like 'Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders Vol. 1'. It had so much, ahem, riding on it, to be so much better than its source material. But sadly it fumbled and flopped. The cheap, silly and shallow animated series is more entertaining and easier to follow in comparison. It has its brief, little moments; its glimmers, and shining signs of charm, like its many in-show magic jewels. The comic has no charm whatsoever. It's just sad and depressing. I don't know what happened behind the scenes that made it turn out the way it did, but it happened, and this is the catastrophic final product.
Yet another reboot is in order, I'd say. In comic form, or in animation.
Creators, for next time: be sure to make a careful, thoughtful, slow building plan, progression, and effort, please.
Final Score: 1/5
EDIT: For another version of 'Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders' that is worth your investment, read 'Avalon: Web of Magic', which was inspired by the cartoon.
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