Advance Review: Scouts Rule In `Once Upon A Time At The End Of The World’ #4

There are the Boy Scouts depicted in Normal Rockwell’s paintings and then there at the Wasteland Rangers in Once Upon a Time at the End of the World.

Where the scouts of our world earn merit badges in emergency preparedness and camping, the young rangers in this post-apocalyptic wasteland are trained in curb stomping, chainsawing and religious intolerance. No, there are no Eagle Scouts here.

That, we learn, is the training that Mezzy has undergone before she encountered Maceo and ran away with him. The rangers have been pursuing them ever since, and have now captured the boy. While she is developing feelings for her friend, Mezzy abandons him to be tortured by her former colleagues. In the process, we learn more about Mezzy’s backstory and some of her motivations that will carry the story forward.

Writer Jason Aaron deftly balances the flashbacks with the regular story – drawing some nice similarities between the tale’s past and present. While she has softened a bit, until now, Mezzy has been a largely one-note character. Now we understand why she is the way she is. Aaron’s storytelling skills have led us to this point without even realizing what we were missing.

Artist Alexandre Tefenkgi, supported by Lee Loughridge’s colors, doesn’t have as much to play with in this issue. In the past, he’s been able to explore some amazing post-apocalyptic landscapes. This part of the story is more contained, so he’s instead forced to depict a lot more humans that we’re used to seeing in this series. Still, he’s given some interesting, if slightly off-story, imagery of the new age merit badges as well as a diagram of the rangers’ training center.

With one more issue before this first arc concludes, there is plenty of action and additional background for readers to learn about. Just don’t expect a merit badge any time soon.

Once Upon a Time at the End of the World #4 will be available for purchase on Wednesday.