If you're a Courtney Crumrin fan already, then In The Twilight Kingdom #4 should put you into nirvana, as it pays off any number of older stories, continues the evolution of Courtney as a witch and in the process tells a really entertaining story set in the realm of Faerie. If you're not already a Courtney Crumrin fan, boy are you going to be confused... but hey, it's issue four of the third miniseries in the series, so complete accessibility is probably an unfair expectation. At any rate, Naifeh also impresses with his rendition of Faerie and its inhabitants, reminding me in several places of Mike Mignola's Hellboy work. And while Courtney is generally a book I think of as being kind of darkly funny, Naifeh also has some interesting points to make about human encroachment on the Faerie kingdom, something that can be read as an indictment of man's arrogance toward nature if you want to go all real-world or as more fleshing out of the realm of the "Night Things" that shared Courtney's original title if you want to stick with the fiction angle.
I was surprised, in reading this issue, how much this latest issue has seemed like a darkly twisted version of a Harry Potter tale. Courtney is considerably more snarky and ill-tempered than the famous boy wizard, but her role as the one who knows what's going on, who has a destiny and who has enemies and allies within the adult community as well as the kids, not to mention the whole exploration of a magical (and yet dangerous) realm is the kind of thing that made Harry Potter so engaging. Naifeh does a great job of making the realm of Faerie seem potentially deadly and yet enticing, and of portraying the "monsters" of the realm as characters rather than just foes to be overcome.
In particular, the Twilight King is a fascinating character. There's a sinister cast to him, both in terms of his appearance and his role as a player in the realm, and yet Naifeh makes him a very sympathetic character. The reader is never sure if he's telling the truth to his new "daughter" or not, but he comes off as genuine and human rather than as a monster, and certainly when his family comes under attack, the sympathies of the reader lie with the Twilight King. In addition, it's interesting to note that Courtney, a full-blooded human (as far as we know) has more in common with the enigmatic, dangerous-seeming but generally well-meaning night things than with the humans, mostly represented by fanatical and misguided hunters or the overly political warlock's council.
Naifeh weaves a lot of his previous stories into this issue, from the fate of some of Courtney's former adversaries to the monster she's faced before, and it's a lot of fun for those who have read the series before. Mind you, I would have liked a little bit more of a reminder, because while names like "Hector" and "Tommy Rawhead" are familiar, I don't entirely remember what part of the story they were in. This series overall has been less self-contained than the others, making up one story arc instead of four loosely-grouped stories, which means that it will probably read better in collected form and after you've reread the other collections, but isn't as satisfying in issue-sized chunks as the previous stories have been. Don't get me wrong, it's still really good, it's just that refreshing your memory about all the previous chapters will enhance the reading experience with this series.
Another Courtney Crumrin series comes to a close, and as with each series, Naifeh teases the reader about what's coming next. The promise of Courtney and her uncle growing closer, and Courtney continuing to move toward more knowledge of the night things and other magical weirdness, is one that has me very interested, but this series focused on how Courtney interacted with other children as much as it did how she interacts with the world of magic, and showed another facet of this surprisingly deep and rich-with-potential character.
