Review: Captain Wylde & The Headless Mariner
Swashbuckling Pirates and nefarious necromancy collide as John A. Short brings the legend of Captain Cinnamon Wylde to the Kickstarter tavern…
‘Year of our Lord 1727... The golden age of piracy! Captain Cinnamon Wylde is the scourge of the waters around Dead Man's Straits... Raiding slaver vessels and freeing their cargo! Along with her clockwork hand (only losers have hooks) and her homunculus sidekick, Erasmus! But she has a deadly rival in the form of Captain Godiva Dunaway who uses black magic and a crew of zombies to rule the seven seas. Dunaway has plans to take Wylde down using an ancient curse and necromancy! She plans to raise the deadly creature known as the Black Reaper from the waves... a headless horror that cannot be killed because it is already dead.’
As descriptions go, the one for Captain Wilde & The Headless Mariner is a good’en. Promising an old-school action and adventure tale on the high seas with a hint of mysticism, you’ll be forgiven if you read it and not instantly reminisce about the good parts of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Even if said movies did decline in quality after the third film, everyone has a fondness for roaming the seas as a charismatic pirate. With Captain Wilde & The Headless Mariner, writer and creator John A. Short takes this youthful grasp of the humble pirate adventure and mashes it with a hint of dark fantasy and mythology. It’s a curious combination that also makes this adventure one you don’t want to miss.
Before I join Captain Wilde and her crew of misfits, it’s worth noting that this book has reached its fundraising goal on Kickstarter. What this means is that the book has secured the funds to see it published and there’s no risk to the “all or nothing” campaign style that Kickstarter is. With eleven days to go and plenty of reward tiers still available for you to pledge towards, there’s no better time to book your travel on the Captain’s airship.
Cpt. Wilde & The Headless Mariner focuses on the battle between the titular captain and her rival, the nefarious Cpt. Godiva Dunaway. Where Wilde utilises the clockwork crew devised by Isaac Newton and calls the free land of Libertatia her home. Dunaway is the polar opposite, instead, she uses an army of slaves to maintain her vessel, while her use of necromancy affords her a crew of damn souls whose purpose is to serve her for eternity. Of course, having such an unlikeable rival does make Cpt Wilde’s plight an easy one to get behind.
Avoiding spoilers and I enjoyed this comic book. The story's pace is spot on throughout with a great mixture of action and emotion. Short spends a great amount on setting the back story to these characters within the book’s introduction so he doesn’t need to fill his narrative with exposition for those who are first jumping on board with this issue. Naturally, you’ll have more understanding of the wider plot threads if you’ve been here since the first outing, but ‘The Headless Mariner” does enough to act as a standalone tale if you so wish. For those who want more understanding of how the threads of this world fit together, Short also goes into detail within the book's epilogue pages.
As mentioned above this story is a swashbuckling pirate adventure through and through. It’s got a badass heroine, a nefarious rival, grand ship battles, and a mysterious creature that ties it all together. Where Short’s script and razor-sharp writing cut the cloth, it’s Gabrielle Noble's art that brings it all together. I enjoyed the book's opening sequence which sees Cpt. Wilde attacks a spaceship in the dead of night. Here Noble uses a great mixture of cool blues and soft hints of light to brighten what would essentially be a battle in dark seas. The action is also well presented with a gorgeous shot of the good captain's airship descending from above the slaver's ship, to then throw us straight into the battle on board the vessel. Character work is also of a similar quality with Noble using strong lines to make her characters stand out from the background. Likewise, the titular Headless Mariner is brilliantly crafted and is a hideous mix of Davey Jones and a barnacle-covered patchwork monster. Oh, and there’s a shark too!
Overall, Captain Wilde & The Headless Mariner is an unmissable grand adventure set in the golden age of piracy. Its story is a great mixture of high-seas hi jinx and creature features that stars a well-developed cast of characters. Whether this is your first adventure with Captain Wilde, or you’re a seasoned member of her crew, John A. Short and Gabrielle Nobel have crafted a great story that’s worthy of a pirate's life!
There’s still time to back Captain Wilde & The Headless Mariner on Kickstarter, and you can do so by clicking here.
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