“Cursed”, written by Thomas Wheeler, illustrated by Frank Miller

 

‎416 pages, Simon & Schuster, ISBN-13: 978-1534425330

Now, I have nothing against a little Arthurian reimagining – just read my review of A.A. Attanasio’s series, published on April 18^th, 2022. But then you knew that. But this…this…dreck. This woke shitball. This PC garbage masquerading as Arthurian mythos. This trash with a capital ‘T’ that rhymes with ‘P’ that stands for ‘Piss’. I am talking of course of Cursed, written by Thomas Wheeler but illustrated by Frank Miller, the first of what is obviously meant to be a multipart epic that, if there is any justice on this Earth, will never come to pass. I admit it, I was seduced by the “Illustrated by Frank Miller” in the title as I still remember his groundbreaking work on The Dark Knight Returns back in the Glorious 80s – that, and the fact that it was $2.99 at Ollie’s.

But what is it that makes Cursed so cursed? Well, I’ll tell ya: first, it has almost nothing to do with the original Arthurian myths. Oh, some of the characters pop-up, but not as they were originally imagined by those myth-tellers ages ago. Arthur is there, but as a young sell-sword, not the Once and Future King-to-Be. Merlin is there, too, but as a Druid who has lost his magic. Lancelot also pops up as The Weeping Monk who is not all that he seems. Percival – I mean, “Squirrel” as he is called here – is but a boy from whom, I imagine, more will be heard from later. Even Guinevere makes an appearance at the very end…as a Viking warrior (a Viking named “Guinevere”. Yeah, right). Oh, and Excalibur is also on board – but isn’t called Excalibur.

But they don’t matter. The only character who does is Nimue (that’s “ni-moo” to you and me) who is, if you’re up on your Arthurian mythos, The Lady of the Lake. That’s right: that strange woman lying in a pond distributing swords in some farcical aquatic ceremony is the star of Cursed. Why? Because she’s a Strong Diverse Female Character, of course; after all, the myths of King Arthur Et al. are just brimming with Straight White Dudes, while most of the females to be found are of the feminine, retiring, Damsel-to-be-Saved-and-then-Had type, which we can’t have any more. To compare this trash with Attanasio’s aforementioned work is to contrast the former author’s respect for the source material with Wheeler’s contempt for the same.

The naming conventions (aside from those lifted from Arthurian lore) are jarringly inconsistent with regard to origin and bespeak a haphazard approach to research that carries throughout, and not a single character in Cursed bears the slightest resemblance to their namesake, to the point where it becomes cringe-worthy in the extreme to even claim a connection between the myths and this crap. This whole doesn’t feel original, but rather like a hodgepodge of stuff in which the male author is doing his damnedest to be Woke by making his protagonist female, not because the story is enhanced in doing so, but because he feels like that a female-led Arthurian retelling is necessary to Right the Wrongs of the sexiest and Christian past.

And that’s where Wheeler differs again from Attanasio, for while the later included pagans and Norse Gods and a whole litany of other beings that would have been during the Time of Arthur, the Christians – who were just starting to rise and assert themselves in his telling – were treated with respect as one faction amongst many. Not Wheeler. To him, all Christian characters are evil, intent on wiping out the Fey (a more multicultural lot you couldn’t imagine) who are all Good and Kind and Peaceful and oh brother make it stop you bleeding heart piece of…okay, I’m back now. A more modern take – that is, craptacular – on the Arthurian Mythos than Cursed would be hard to imagine. Here’s to this dreck being a one and done, like the Netflix show it inspired.