Feature: Imogen of the Wyrding Way Reviews 

Mignolaversity: “Imogen of the Wyrding Way”

By | June 23rd, 2021
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“Imogen of the Wyrding Way,” the second “Tales from the Outerverse” story, explores one of the central characters from “Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens.” It’s mostly a standalone tale, easily accessible to new readers, but its heart owes a lot to “Lady Baltimore.”

Written by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden
Illustrated by Peter Bergting
Colored by Michelle Madsen
Lettered by Clem Robins

While on a job in Denmark with her fellow Wyrders, Imogen hears some odd news: hundreds of refugees fleeing the spread of Nazism are traveling into the nearby forest, and never returning. Helping a young man find his refugee family will bring Imogen face-to-face with some of the worst that war can inflict upon those in need—and make her ask the difficult question of what she’s really fighting for.

Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, the writing team behind Baltimore and other Outerverse titles, spotlight the witch Imogen in this exciting one-shot.

Ever since the original Baltimore prose novel, side stories have been a part of the Outerverse. While there was an ongoing narrative over the course of the book, there were also detours into nested short stories, and they were some of my favorite chapters. So “Tales of the Outerverse” simultaneously feels like new territory, but also like it is tapping back into its creative roots.

That said, there’s also a bit of a dance involved with a story like this. It needs to stand alone, but it also shouldn’t feel superfluous, so there’s a lot of smaller things going on here; fleshing out the Hexenkorps, the Wyrders, reviving the vampire plotline from “Baltimore,” fleshing out Imogen. . . but nothing so essential to the plot that it would prevent a new reader from engaging with the material. Instead, these elements serve more like teasers for the series.

The core of the story, however, is something very different, much like those old Baltimore detours. While the instigating event is still tied to the ongoing narrative of World War II, “Imogen of the Wyrding War” is primarily about trolls. It’s a more classical tale, bound to the old world, and it’s a perfect match for Peter Bergting’s art. Bergting has a way of drawing the natural world that makes it feel ancient, steeped in mystery. Everything in the forest with the trolls looks fantastic. I especially love Bergting’s designs for the trolls.

Michelle Madsen’s colors push those forest scenes too, giving depth to the images. That may not sound like much, but when you consider this is a story that hinges on selling the scale between humans and trolls, that image depth makes the scale read immediately. Like just look at this panel with the troll looming in the background, his figure bleeding into the silhouette of distant trees.

If the inked outlines had remained black, this panel would take just a little longer to read, and you have to think about it more than simply just feeling it.

Madsen’s colors also shine earlier in the book with the vampire encounter, where the heavy contrast of light and shadow in Bergting’s art is pushed to accentuate the magical elements in the scene, but then Madsen uses the colors from the magical elements to cast light even in scenes where the magic is outside the panel, meaning we still feel its presence.

Before we go any further, if you haven’t read my review of “Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens” #4 yet, I recommend you do so as I’m going to continue some thoughts from that piece. And beware, there are spoilers ahead.

Speaking of magic, it seems that more and more Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola are trying to teach us its rules. Back in the days of “Baltimore,” magic was a nebulous force, primarily used by those that wished to do harm, but as the focus shifted and magic users became supporting characters and even leads, suddenly we need to have at least some understanding of magic’s rules in order for scenes to have tension. After all, when we don’t know what a character can and can’t do, it’s hard to get a sense of when they’re in genuine peril or not.

Continued below

As I mentioned in my “Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens” #4 review, that series is starting to pull back the veil on what the power could be that made Henry Baltimore, Crina Cojacaru, Josef, and Einar into weapons to fight the Outer Dark. There we learned that Wyrders can tap into the power of Earth’s soul. But in “Imogen of the Wyrding Way,” we also learn that is not their only source of power. Wyrders can draw power from the Outer Dark, and as long as their intentions are pure, they won’t be corrupted by it. This in turn reinforces ideas introduced in “Cojacaru the Skinner,” where the power of a place of worship to keep out witches only lasted while those within remained uncorrupted by fear and doubt. On the flipside, those that are corrupted by the Outer Dark always hunger, and with no-one to consume, they will turn on each other. And intentions matter, which is something again reinforced in “Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens” through Judge Rigo, who can do the right thing for the wrong reasons, and it makes him vulnerable to fear, doubt, and other kinds of corruption.

The cumulative effect of all these stories and the way they play off of each other is that they teach us how this world works, but they do this without making it a lecture. We learn through stories, through emotional investment, through failures and successes.

That said, there is another way these stories play off of each other, and this one is a little weird. The last two pages of “Imogen and the Wyrding Way” feel like an epilogue to “Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens,” as Imogen and Sofia take the next step in their relationship. But the thing is, it’s an epilogue to a story that isn’t finished yet, as “Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens” #5 doesn’t come out till next month. Emotionally, we don’t know where that relationship was left back in May 1938 when ‘The Witch Queens’ takes place—presumably it was a good place, but still one where there was still some reservation, given Imogen’s comments about “. . .Things I should’ve said before now. Things I should’ve done,” six months later in “Imogen and the Wyrding Way.”

It’s non-linear patchwork storytelling, and it will read very differently as collections when they come out early next year. But I feel this non-linear approach has also been a part of the Outerverse since the beginning, and I enjoy that Mignola and Golden are still tinkering with this element well over a decade later.

Final Verdict: 8 – “Imogen of the Wyrding Way” is a classic Outerverse story in so many ways, using storytelling devices that have been employed since its inception, but it never loses sight of the future either. As much as Imogen’s story feels classical, Imogen herself is pushing the Outerverse into new frontiers, quickly becoming one the series’ most compelling characters.


//TAGS | Mignolaversity

Mark Tweedale

Mark writes Haunted Trails, The Harrow County Observer, The Damned Speakeasy, and a bunch of stuff for Mignolaversity. An animator and an eternal Tintin fan, he spends his free time reading comics, listening to film scores, watching far too many video essays, and consuming the finest dark chocolates. You can find him on BlueSky.

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