The conflict between Nimue and Morgana continues, with Morgana destroying Camelot and then in the 1950s trying to resurrect Mordred to repeat the destruction ( )

The book begins with a young housewife having a series of inexplicable magical moments--her hair starts changing color, insects crawl out of her throat at odd intervals, her clothes start whipping around her as though in a gale. This is by far the best part of the Madame Xanadu series thus far, but it ends far too soon. A loooong series of stories about Nimue and Morgana growing up follows, in which Nimue is perfect in every way and Morgana is evil in every way, blah blah blah so boring I could die. The art is better than the last book, but not good enough to make up for the (yet again) trite storyline and truly terrible dialog. ( )

Very torn over this volume.
On the one hand the art was beautiful! But not very progressive - ex. lots more female nudity and big doey eyes from time to time.
On the other, after the big reveal halfway through the story just stopped being interesting. I've read a million other king arthur stories before, and most of them were more interesting. I also did not appreciate how much help the mysterious Mr. Jones had to offer. Not hating on the guy, just felt that he kind of stole the show by the end and made our heroen look a bit weak.
But what else do you expect from DC these days? ( )

Yay, Amy Reeder is back! I love her work and this is no exception. I thought the story was good - a big improvement on volume two, but not quite as good as volume one. This volume focuses on the relationship between Nimue/Madame Xanadu, and her sister Morgana. We get a lot of backstory about the two sisters. It comes in the midst of the main story, dealing with a 1950s housewife struggling with her life and - quite suddenly - with the supernatural. She seeks help from Madame Xanadu and this leads to a confrontation between Nimue and Morgana. Oh, and throw in John Jones, who's investigating a little Satanic cult! Yeah, seriously.

I enjoyed the main storyline, but I didn't know what to make of the secondary story, dealing with the sisters' pasts. You come away from that plot feeling sort of sorry for Morgana. She's not as talented as her sisters when it comes to magic and she's part of a family who's power is diminishing and who's time has come and gone. Nimue is depicted as the perfect sister and Morgana as the bitch. And she is... she's violent and crazed and vicious. And she's grieving the death of her son. But we have to reconcile this with her new appearance in the 1950s, where she's bursting people, Violet Beauregarde-style, as she gets her feet rubbed. So yeah, that's a little strange.

I did like the way that Madame Xanadu is and isn't a part of the 1950s lifestyle. Talk about a decade where she just doesn't fit. And yet, Wagner makes it work. I would recommend this volume... though I would recommend solely on the artwork, even if the story sucked. Which it didn't. ( )

vol. 3