Though any writer worth his salt has dozens of them, a good high concept is still worth its weight in gold. Beyond Avalon has a great high concept, even better for being impossible to boil down into one of those Hollywood "this meets that" style descriptions. Basically, Beyond Avalon looks at first like fantasy, but it's got room to explore other genres thanks to Pruett's use of Avalon, the mystical paradise of Camelot, as the jumping-off point for the story. Pruett starts off a little slowly, but that's perhaps to be expected with a high concept that requires a little more explanation, and the promising blend of art and writing here means that I'll be checking in to see what happens with issue two.
Our heroine, Megan, fits the mold of many great heroes, with a heroic lineage, plenty of confidence and skills to back it up and a unique element to her birth that makes her a "chosen one" in some ways. She's the daughter of King Arthur after he died and went to paradise, and she's inherited both her father's nobility, wanderlust and connection to Excalibur, which makes her the perfect heroine to pick up the sword and follow her father back to the mortal realms. Pruett blends this tale of a heroine striking out into territories unknown with a father-daughter relationship story (underplayed in this first issue, but definitely there) that gives Megan's quest a double meaning and a double goal. There's not enough information in this first issue to really know how Beyond Avalon is going to shape up as far as storytelling goes, but there's certainly rich material to be mined there.
The story of Beyond Avalon #1 is all set up. Pruett gives us a glimpse into the idyllic life of inhabitants of Avalon, shows us the relatively happy life of Megan and impresses upon us that she is intelligent, kind and strong, with her biggest weakness being a love of her father that she doesn't feel is returned. King Arthur is mostly a distant figure in this first issue, and not a real likable one at that, but Morgan makes a surprising and effective mother-figure for Megan. The story is full of vague portents and discussions, the kind we've seen in any "chosen one" story, but it is also permeated by a sense of peace and how boring that can be for adventurous spirits, which makes it easy to see why Arthur and his daughter would choose to leave Avalon. There's also a great little teaser featuring a random adventurer facing down a dragon, which hints at the more adventurous stories to come.
While it's difficult to judge the story on Beyond Avalon in this first issue, it's easy to judge the artwork, and that judgment is that it's gorgeous. Goran Sudzuka impressed me with his work on Outlaw Nation, Lady Constantine (and I thought Y: The Last Man, until I realized that was Goran Parlov), and his work here is actually the best I've seen from him. Beautifully colored by Len O'Grady, the style is most comparable to the work of Linda Medley on Castle Waiting, although Sudzuka has a bit more depth and detail to his characters that reminds me as much of Colleen Doran's work. At any rate, Sudzuka and O'Grady bring Avalon to beautiful, vibrant life, and there is a lot communicated in the silent pages with Arthur that doesn't need any words to tell the story. I'm not sure where the story is going, but I'm sure that wherever it does go, the settings and characters will be beautifully rendered by this art team.
So in the end, my take on Beyond Avalon is that there's not enough information there yet to judge where the series is going to go. However, based on this first issue, with strong characters, vague but intriguing prophecies of change and adventure and amazing artwork, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that it's going to go somewhere interesting. I look forward to seeing where the journey takes us, and how Pruett, Sudzuka and the rest will guide us there. 7/10
