Welcome back to Haunted Trails, Multiversity Comics’ column exploring the world Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt’s “The Sixth Gun” and “Shadow Roads.”
This Wednesday there’s a new issue of “Shadow Roads” coming out, the first in over a year. Unfortunately, the series took an unplanned break mid-arc after June 2019’s “Shadow Roads” #8, so I’m guessing readers are a little hazy as to where the series left off. Hopefully this column will jog your memory. I’m going to recap the previous eight issues—not everything, just the details pertinent to this arc, which is focused primarily on Henry Grey.
‘The Crossroads’
“Shadow Roads” #1–5
Illustrated by A.C. Zamudio, colors by Carlos N. Zamudio, lettered by Crank!
We were first introduced to the world of “Shadow Roads” through the eyes of Henry Grey, a native American raised in London in the care of a solicitor working for an undisclosed benefactor. Henry spent his formative years in Eton College where he presumably met Barry Weathersby, his closest friend. Now nineteen, Henry attends the King’s College in Cambridge, though he’s unable to forget his outsider status, where it is not uncommon for his fellow students to spit on him. He is objectified as a “noble savage” and he’s grown up cut-off from his own culture.
When the story begins, he’s visiting an exhibit focused on native Americans at the British Museum of Natural History, trying to connect with his heritage, all while the exhibit’s white curator enjoys wearing a headdress and calling himself chief.
And then, a native American woman appears and offers him a ceremonial dagger along with a message: “Go home.”
This transportation was made possible thanks to a Crossroads, one of hundreds of locations across the world where the space between the material world and the Spirit World is thinnest. They connect to the Winding Way, the path that cuts through all of creation, and all its doors connect to each other. Kaifu is the guardian of the Crossroads, making sure only those who are meant to use them use them. He also has the power to create new Crossroads and close others. Got all that? Because that’s kind of important.
So, Ms. Redmayne takes Henry to the Buzzard Wife, head of the Buzzard Clan. It turns out that Ms. Redmayne, the Bizzard Wife, and Henry’s undisclosed benefactor had conspired together to hide Henry, because Henry is the son of Screaming Crow, possibly the most powerful shaman to have ever lived. If you’ve read “The Sixth Gun,” you may remember Screaming Crow as a shrunken head with immense magical power. For a time he possessed Nidawi during the final battle for the Six (but that’s a whole other story we don’t have time for).
Illustrated by Brian Hurtt, colors by Bill Crabtree
It turns out there’s a lot about himself that Henry doesn’t know. For one thing, he’s not actually nineteen—he’s actually eighteen, and the ceremonial blade he was given was a birthday present from his parents. Even more mysterious, the blade itself does not have any magical power, rather it channels its power from Henry, a key that unlocks the power in his blood. And there’s more than just his father’s blood that makes him powerful—his mother had powers of her own.
Continued belowAnd this is a big problem because it puts a target on Henry’s back. See, it turns out that there’s this guy Vadik (though he calls himself “the Hunter”) and he hunts down powerful magical beings and devours them to gain their abilities. Three weeks ago, he breached the Spirit World and killed Kalfu’s predecessor, thus gaining access to the Crossroads. Since then, he’s been going on a murder spree all over the world, killing witches, warlocks, spirits, and deities, and it turns out that Henry is one of his targets.
There’s a lot more to this story, but nothing pertinent to the current arc. All you need to know is Ms. Redmayne and Kalfu managed to rally a band of the Hunter’s targets, and together they were able to subdue and imprison him. Their success, as noted by Ms. Redmayne, was not because they were powerfully magical individuals, but because when the Hunter came for them, they were steadfast. For this reason, she believes they may be useful in the dark days ahead.
‘The New World’
“Shadow Roads” #6–7
Illustrated by Brian Hurtt, colors by Carlos N. Zamudio, lettered by Crank!
So, it turns out that the event from three weeks ago that enabled the Hunter to access the Spirit World and kill the previous Kalfu was nothing less than the end and rebirth of the world. Gord Cantrell, the new Kalfu, recruited Ms. Redmayne from purgatory so that they could work together at the behest of the Court of Order (I can’t elaborate further on what the Court of Order is because at this point in the story it’s little more than a name). Now, whenever she dies, Kalfu pulls ferries her back from the Spirit World so that she can continue their work.
Kalfu and Ms. Redmayne interrogate the imprisoned Hunter and learn that he was not operating alone. He had allies, the Cabal, which enabled him to track Henry’s blade. It turns out when the Six where destroyed, their magic was scattered, and now the Cabal seeks to amass this power for themselves.
Back in Oxford, Henry’s friend, Barry Weathersby is visited by Mr. Eldridge, the solicitor of Henry’s mysterious benefactor.
Though we still don’t know who this benefactor is, we do know a little about him: he is a man with many enemies and he has remained anonymous so that his enemies do not associate him with Henry; he is well-informed, knowing a great deal about Henry and Barry’s recent journeys through the Crossroads; he also knows that other, less friendly eyes are aware of this too; and he is aware that there is treachery afoot in Bombay and that this is somehow associated with Henry, though the precise nature remains a mystery to him. The benefactor wishes Barry to investigate, not because he is special or particularly qualified, but simply because he is Henry’s friend, some one Henry trusts, and because he is beneath the notice of the dark forces at play. I really can’t elaborate here. It’s all very cryptic. However, Barry agrees to go to Bombay and Mr. Eldridge gives him Chekhov’s gun, which in this case is quite literally a pistol.
Meanwhile, Henry is with the Buzzard Clan, learning about his father’s people, now his people. Part of this involves learning to ghost walk, to loose his spirit from his body and walk in the Spirit World. . . which is difficult for Henry when the Buzzard Wife customarily does this naked and he is very uncomfortable with that.
Later, as Henry practises, he hears a voice in the ghost walk calling him to Bombay.
Again, there are other plotlines here, as other characters track down one of the Hunter’s allies and get a glimpse of the sort of powers they’re up against, but these aren’t pertinent to the next arc.
‘Birthright’
“Shadow Roads” #8–10
Continued below
Illustrated by A.C. Zamudio, colors by Carlos N. Zamudio, lettered by Crank!
Only the first issue of this arc has been published, but there’s still a lot to cover. When the issue begins, Henry has vanished from the Buzzard Clan, seemingly through a Crossroads. . . except he can’t have gone through the Crossroads. He would need Kalfu to access the Crossroads, and even if he had somehow managed to circumvent this obstacle, Kalfu would still know if the Crossroads had been used. And yet somehow Henry has vanished at the doorstep of a Crossroads without apparently having used the Crossroads. There’s also the mystery of why he left in the first place.
Though the Buzzard Wife and Ms. Redmayne both worked at the behest of Screaming Crow to hide Henry, they did not know the full extent of his plans, so in an effort to track down the missing young man, they contact Henri Fournier, who had been in possession of Screaming Crow’s shrunken head and at times even allowed the shaman to possess him. Fournier claims to know more of Screaming Crow than anyone save Screaming Crow himself. He reveals that it was he that arranged for the blade be delivered to Henry on his eighteenth birthday, following instructions left to him by Screaming Crow. The blade, carved from the bone of a dead god, was made by his parents and imbued with their magics. However, the Pathways are closed to most, and certainly not open to a mere human. It is by virtue of Henry’s mother’s blood that he was able to travel through the Pathways. What this means isn’t revealed in this issue. All we know is that Henry Grey isn’t fully human and that his mother was a powerful woman of “the Shadowland Court.” Make of that what you will.
Meanwhile, Barry is travelling by boat and is nearly at Bombay. Considering this is the 1880s and a journey from England to India typically took six months, it seems Henry’s benefactor had arranged some sort of magical shortcut, though the story does not explore or even really acknowledge it at this point. However, we do get a sense of why Barry accepted a dangerous mission to Bombay that he’s clearly under qualified for—he feels that he was not living up to the man his father expected him to be, and he feels as if destiny is calling for him to define himself on his own “grand adventure.” All this unfolds in a scene with another panel of Chekhov’s gun, just in case you’d forgotten about it.
Meanwhile, Henry is in Bombay where he is observed by a young boy who reports to a guru called Baba Dheer.
In his dreams, Henry seems a house. He searches Bombay for it, and when he finds it, there is a woman waiting for him in its gardens—his mother.
. . . And that’s it. That’s the cliffhanger we’ve been dangling from for the past year. Answers, a lot of answers, await in “Shadow Roads” #9.
“Shadow Roads” #9 is out in comic book stores this Wednesday, and “Shadow Roads” #10 will wrap up the ‘Birthright’ arc when it comes out September 2, 2020.
Story by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt
Written by Brian Hurtt
Illustrated by A.C. Zamudio
Colored by Carlos Nicolas Zamudio
Lettered by Crank!In Calcutta, Henry learns from his mother the truth of what happened with her and his father, Screaming Crow. She warns him that a vile assassin—a fae creature named Asha—is after him and his powerful blade. Across town, Barry has arrived and—along with his new allies—is homing in on the location of Henry. In England, Kalfu and Abigail meet with one of his “professional contacts” in search of information on Henry’s whereabouts.
