Bin Fodder: Leave it to Chance – Conclusion

As I conclude my review of Leave it to Chance I am forced to face the reality that a solid story with great potential was ended on a hollow note.  A story that should have gone out with a bang went out with a whimper, and a confusing one at that.

 

 

The series wraps up with issues nine through thirteen.

 

 

 

Issues nine and ten are a two part monster story.  The premise (a la The Last Action Hero) involves classic movie monsters coming off the screen and into Devil’s Echo to terrorize the town.  From the perspective of a child, this is cool and scary.  But the lack of any kind of attempt to even explain how they manifested does pose a slight problem for me.

 

 

These facts notwithstanding the issues are still very engaging.  Lucas comes through, of course, in the end with an ingenious plan to rid the town of these creatures.  But not before one of Devil’s Echo’s finest is bitten and infected by the werewolf.  Yet another unbelievable fact is that this police officer maintains his good intentions to protect the people, even though he himself has become a werewolf.

Issue eleven is a stand-alone adventure wherein Chance falls prey to that age-old comics trick of using the cover to, for lack of a better term, lie to the audience.  The cover implies that some undead hockey player attacks chance or in some way attempts to terrorize her.  But as the issue plays out this couldn’t be further from the truth.  Not only is the dead hockey player rather mild mannered he actually ends up saving Chance’s life.

 

 

Twelve brings things somewhat full circle as Chance is awoken in the night by the memory of her fairie friends.  She remembers that she’s forgotten them.  After returning to the garden they have always inhabited and finding it dead and barren she is determined to find and resuscitate her imaginary friends.  She cooks up a shrinking potion and off she goes.  After finding her friends, very much alive but in trouble at the hands of evil wasps, Chance helps fight them off…with a little help from her pet dragon.

 

 

 

 

The book concludes with issue thirteen which takes up the store of Chance Falconer a year after the end of issue twelve.  A year after her father dies.  The story is convoluted and quite confusing at parts.  It ends…without an ending.  Perhaps Robinson intended to return to this story at some point, but it seems like an unnecessary issue to even put out three years after the previous issue.  Twelve left the series on a sad, but concluded note.  Thirteen opens the door to more issues that never manifest.

 

 

 

Leave it to Chance is still a really good series.  I wish Robinson had left things how they were and not felt the need to try and “conclude” things, especially when issue thirteen has a real George Lucas feel to it.  Overall I give the series a B, which is only because of how it concludes.

 

Check back next week as I launch into a brand new title!

 

For now,

 

This is your Bin Fodder Guru Tim Blacksmith signing off.

 

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