4.5 maybe?

3.5* defs heading back into the right direction. Just another day in the world of the rat queens

3.75 stars

At the end of my review of the previous volume, The Infernal Path , I wrote that I did not think I would have bothered about this volume, if I had not brought it home from the library together with the preceding one. To be honest, I am not sure that in and of itself would have been enough, but seeing as this volume sees a change in the creative team (letterer Ryan Ferrier taking over the writing duties from Wiebe, and Priscilla Petraites taking over the art duties from Gieni), I decided to at...

The new team have done a great job with this new story ark, great plot, gorgeous artwork. Happy to see the Queens back on track.

The steam has well and truly run out of this series. Not sure whether it's the artwork, the all-over-the-place-plot or the complete character departures but the new team has just lost the magic of the original Rat Queens for me. Vol 1 & 2 (1 in particular) will always be great comics with refreshing characters in my mind, but the series has been steadily losing its way for me. Won't be continuing on with future volumes.

Ah, the star-crossed Rat Queens series -- a strong group of characters in an intriguing setting, consistently undercut by near-constant changes in the creative team, weird plot cul-de-sacs, and oddly truncated storylines.With writer/creator Kurtis Wiebe gone, the creative group for this collection is entirely new. And the results are...middling. With Violet, my favorite of the Queens, completely sidelined, this version of the team has a different dynamic. The adventures are entertaining enough w...

That's it; I'm done with this series.There's a moment early on where Betty asks 'Remember when this was fun?' I really can't.Maybe I misinterpreted the first few volumes, with its rollicking action and over-the-top characters. Because ever since, this series has gone more up its own rear, fascinated with itself to the exclusion of its own audience. This book starts off with a decent reminder of what it used to be, as the gang has some adventures with unicorns and a slog chimp, but the main story...

The Rat Queens are back with a new creative team behind it! I genuinely liked this one. It felt like a bit of a comeback of the original first volume. The art is fantastic and the story is compelling enough. I'm looking forward to what the new creative team has in store for the series :D

Honestly I think I'm done reading this series. The story doesn't really make linear sense anymore. The plot is just repeating itself over and over again. And I hate to say it, but the artwork in this volume in particular was not great. :/

Gary, now somehow a powerful warrior-king with an army, conquers Palisade and rules as a petty tyrant. Scrawny perpetual-fuck-up Gary from volume one. Who has a grudge against the admittedly abusive Rat Queens. That Gary.The new creative team does a reasonably good job emulating series creator Kurtis Wiebe, but that’s not always a good thing. The Queens’ entertaining sass and brass is preserved, but The Once and Future King also embraces the incoherent plot thrombosis that derailed Wiebe’s i...

The original writer sort of drove the Rat Queens franchise into the ground, but a new writer and artist take up the banner and try to carry on . . . with little success and even less humor. Lifeless and dull, it is not helped by offering up an intervention and the major return of a very minor character.

Real rating 3.5New creative team, and it shows as it feels like actors on opening night still feeling out their roles. The characterization is pretty solid, and the art is fantastic, but the book was a bit...I don't know. The first issue felt very much like the classic over-the-top fantasy+mockery-of-every-fantasy-cliche-ever that was the foundation of the first volume or two of the series, but every issue thereafter is a thoroughly linear story about Gary (loser Gary from vol. 1) returning as a...

Still a pick, but I have to admit that the twisted timeline and some of the storyline shifts are still pulling me out of the pure fun of the originals.... here’s hoping that the next volume will start to pull the 2 timelines between the original and this world back together.

More like a 2.5 because this was all over the place.

There are certainly aspects I enjoy about the series, but you can never tell what is going to be addressed in a volume and what kind of pacing and art it will have.

A welcome and very fun return to form for the Queens after the last volume, which left me furrowing my brow so hard said furrows were visible from the moon (though only on exceedingly clear nights, to be fair). And, stellar artwork by Priscilla Petraites.More of this, please and thank you.

actual rating: 3.5Not quite as good as the previous volume but still miles better than the few before that. Definitely reminds me of the earlier issues in terms of tone and action and also brings back a couple old characters. Hopefully this series continues on this track in the future because when Rat Queens is good it's really good. I am sad about Violet not really being present though, even if the new Queens are great.

This was the best Rat Queens that I have read in a while. It reconnects with what the Queens are truly about-- dysfunctional families and friendships, daring, mercenary adventures that take turns into high weirdness. The first story involves ex-party pals, the Slog Chimp and unicorns. It will be sung by the bards for a thousand years, and the Slog Chimp will make its way into the annals of legend. The second story begins with the Queens attempting an intervention for Betty, and Betty's recovery

I really liked this volume! I’m definitely feeling like this series is headed in the right direction, and I’m hoping it stays that way. It’s been up and down, but this volume was a good example of “up” for sure. I enjoyed the “Swamp Romp Special,” and the main storyline was engaging and well-done. Watching Maddie develop as a character was awesome too. I also thought the artwork was great in this volume; that aspect has also been hit or miss over the lifetime of the series. Overall, I think the