Scion Volume 6: Royal Wedding from Checker Book Publishing

Once again, I find myself reviewing a Cross Gen comic, and a series that was unfortunately ended prematurely. You see, the Cross Gen comics were intended to take place in a "shared universe" at different times and places. Perhaps there might have been a time when all these Cross Gen titles may have come together, but sadly, the company went into bankruptcy before then.

Scion would have to be one of the better ones I have read. The story is an epic fantasy that is about a war between two kingdoms: Raven and Heron. The leader of Raven is Bron, who is trying to unite with Heron by marriage. Scion volume six opens with Bron marrying Ylena, the daughter of Heron's King Dane. Hence the title Royal Wedding.

When Ethan, Ylena's sister, hears of the wedding, he rushes to stop it. Now Ethan has already left the kingdom of Heron in order to free some of the lesser races. During this quest, he fell in love with Ashleigh, who is Bron's brother.

The story is really interesting, and quite in depth. You might be thinking that Scion is an Arthurian legend type of story, and it does follow certain conventions such as castles, horses, knights, and all that, but I was amazed at one detail.

Yet the epic fantasy world of Scion is none like I have ever seen, and I wish I could say that is a good thing. You see, mixed in with the world of castles and horses is this smattering of extremely high tech paraphernalia. For example, in the scene for the royal wedding, it is being taped by these hovering cameras. The main characters fight with swords that are a mix of a lightsaber and a regular blade.

Now, I don't understand why a world that could make high-tech items would still go from place to place by horses. Yet this appears to be the world of Scion. At first I thought Scion took place in the Cross Gen past, but it apparently is the future. I began to think that the world of Scion simply did not follow the same rules of technology that Earth did, and accepted some progress but rejected others. I'm not certain if that was a good idea.

Speaking of questionable ideas, the last issue in this volume was very unusual because I had to read it sideways. Apparently, the writers must have really been into Prince Valiant Sunday strip format, and they even use the same style of narration.

Besides that, Scion is one of the best series in the Cross-Gen universe, simply because of the interesting storyline. I think they should have stuck with an epic fantasy with no outrageous technology, but sometimes you just got to say "why not?"