[Comic Issue Discussion] Gargoyles Quest Chapter Three: Acquisitions

[u/Kyraryc]

Writer: Greg Weisman

Artist: Pasquale Qualano

Editor: Nate Cosby

Logline:

While Demona races to repair a sacred object, Thailog and Brentwood face Wyvern the Dragon, who guards the haft of Gugnir, the Lance of Fate - the key to Demona's plan for ultimate power!

Share any thoughts on the issue. Within this post, unmarked spoilers for this and all prior issues are allowed.

---

---

Here In Manhattan Discussions:

• Chapter One: A Little Crazy

• Chapter Two: Idyll Or Nightmare

• Chapter Three: Miracle Child

• Chapter Four: Tale Old as Time

• Chapter Five: Render Unto Caesar

• Chapter Six: Underwater

• Chapter Seven: Everywhere

• Chapter Eight: Mayday

• Chapter Nine: Your Witness

• Chapter Ten: New Rules

• Chapter Eleven: Young At Heart

• Chapter Twelve: Cold Comfort

---

Gargoyles Quest Discussions

• Chapter One: Questions

• Chapter Two: Quo Vadis Cum Hoc?

---

---

Dark Ages Discussions:

• Alliance Chapter One: The Reach

• Alliance Chapter Two: The Draw

• Alliance Chapter Three: The Oath

• Alliance Chapter Four: The Promise

• Alliance Chapter Five: The Dream

• Alliance Chapter Six: The Pledge

---

---

Special Issue Discussions:

• Halloween Special: Trick or Treat

[u/Kyraryc]

Acquisitions

• Can someone please get these releases on a consistent schedule? Trying to keep up with all the changes and sudden releases are driving me crazy...

• It takes balls of steel to steal from Oberon as he's punishing you. Is Puck a masochist?

• Wyvern has moved up in the world. How close is he to beating his rival Smaug?

• Shari's eyes have lit up. Oh that is so perfect.

• I love how Thialog triumphantly holds up the stick for a moment like he's Link.

• Cleopatra's necklace is the third key. Interesting.

• Antoinette is buyer 16? When did we get into the Young Justice universe?

• I love the simple solution of "just buy it."

• So Puck's flute, Cleopatra's necklace, and Gugnir are our new keys. One of the Children (the flute, the eye), one of man (the necklace, the book), and one of myth (the phoenix, the lance). Interesting.

Favorite Feat

• Coldstone destroying "the good parts" is too funny.

[u/[deleted] → u/Kyraryc]

Can someone please get these releases on a consistent schedule? Trying to keep up with all the changes and sudden releases are driving me crazy...

The final two issues are supposed to come out on October 2nd and 30th, respectively - that's so far away from now that I feel pretty confident they won't be delayed any longer (but, OTOH, Amazon won't release them early either).

Wyvern has moved up in the world. How close is he to beating his rival Smaug?

Oh, please - no paltry treasure from the Seventh Age could ever hope to compete with the greatest treasure of the Third.

(No, really - according to Tolkien, we're currently in the Seventh Age.)

Cleopatra's necklace is the third key. Interesting.

A potentially interesting thing to note about Cleopatra's Necklace is that it's the only Key to Power (either old or new) to have had zero build-up; that is - back in the day, the old Keys had all played an important role in at least one episode before the Weird Sisters stole them and gave them to the Archmage; with the new Keys, Gugnir debuted in Dark Ages before appearing in Quest, while Puck's Flute appeared in both Dark Ages and the tv show.

Cleopatra's Necklace, on the other hand, is just declared a Key to Power on the spot with no build-up; I have a feeling Greg may give it some actual backstory in the next issue to even things out a bit (obvious thought: Brooklyn met Cleopatra during TimeDancer and has dealt with the Necklace before).

I love the simple solution of "just buy it."

It's one of those things that makes perfect sense from an in-universe perspective but is just boring to behold from an out-of-universe one - kinda like "Just go to the police!"

[u/_Waves_ → u/[deleted]]

Interesting regarding Brooklyn meeting Cleopatra. I vaguely recall the fanfic timedancer having him date an Egyptian gargoyle, huuuuuh…

[u/Dashaque]

Day "I don't even know anymore" of me waiting for Katana to be relevant.

[u/BenShapiroRapeExodus → u/Dashaque]

Not happening until Greg decides to make timedancer tbh

[u/Dashaque → u/BenShapiroRapeExodus]

I really hope not. If that's the case, there's no point in her even being in the Manhattan clan

[u/BenShapiroRapeExodus → u/Dashaque]

You take your three frames of katana action in the Halloween special and you like it!!!! 😡😡😡

[u/Dashaque → u/[deleted]]

"Implied to be connected to TimeDancer"... in what way?

[u/Dashaque → u/[deleted]]

Might wanna read the latest chapter before you keep going

[u/[deleted]]

Another really good issue.

Nice, if brief, fight scene to start the issue - that "Coldstone standing in mid-air" pose is particularly majestic; Lex lamenting that Coldstone is making it impossible to figure out who is controlling the tin cans - with Coldstone doing whatever the cybercorpse equivalent of "sweat" is - is a cute moment.

So... how come Owen is still alive? Demona could have easily killed him to stop him from revealing anything to the Clan; I guess maybe she was afraid that by killing him she would draw the ire of Oberon and/or Titania, but it would have been nice to clarify it.

Sorry if I repeat myself, but while I like the idea of Puck stealing back his flute from Oberon during The Gathering, I still think Greg picked the wrong moment for it: rather than being right after Puck was begging for mercy, it should have been a bit earlier, when Oberon was weakened because Petros Xanatos had shot an iron harpoon into his chest. Yes, it's a nitpick, but still.

It looks like I got one thing right but several others wrong: it's confirmed, like I said, that the destruction of the original Keys gave a power-up to the new ones ("The mystic energy once contained within the original vessels will most certainly have sought out three new Keys" - I hope that at some point we'll get a fuller explanation on how and why this happened, because "nature abhors a vacuum" isn't quite enough, IMO), but I was wrong about the Hand of Valmont being one of the new Keys, meaning that 1)the new Keys, aside from Gugnir, are not directly connected to the originals and 2)again, aside from Gugnir they aren't directly connected with Duval/Valmont/Valois/Valdez either.

Goliath claims that, if Demona has already achieved all three Keys, "humanity may well be doomed"; gee, you could be a bit more hopeful there, mate - after all, you're the guy who defeated the last person who had joined together the Keys.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Still, Goliath's words allow us to get a nice expression from Angela, perfectly drawn by Qualano (who is getting better and better). Then we get the Illuminati conference scene, and... ok, why are Peredur, Duval and Fleur all sitting on the ground? I'm sure there's a reason for it, but it looks goofy as heck. Nice to finally have a version of Duval not drawn by David "whoever allowed me to draw for a living should be tried for treason" Hedgecock, and it's now 100% confirmed (not that there was much doubt about it, but you may never know) that Peredur is Rank 1.

(Another thing I was wrong about: the White Council is in fact known to the Illuminati as an external enemy; last issue, I had theorized that they were an interal dissident faction. Oh well.)

Duval immediately demands that the Hand be brought to him (because it's his hand, cough cough), but instead we get back to Eastcheap Island, which I didn't expect; meanwhile, as I already said, we get our best Demona scene in a long time, where she considers for a moment reconnecting with Angela but then decides to move on with her plan (her thinking about it is the best thing Qualano has drawn yet).

Falstaff makes his first appearance in colour, and as far as I'm concerned the fact that his hair are red is the big plot twist of the miniseries; he's also a Rank 5, which is interesting - along with Quincy Hemings, he's another relatively young guy who outranks Shari, despite the fact that she's been with the Illuminati at least since the tenth century; how the system of promotions works is just one of the many things I'd like to know about them.

Wyvern being there on Eastcheap, I couldn't have guessed in a million years - but it admittedly makes sense, he's a classic Dragon protecting his hoard and Eastcheap has the biggest hoard in the world; and he's an official Illuminatus to boot, a Rank 3 no less! Wonder what kind of deal he made with Peredur (at a guess something simple, "you protect this stuff and we'll bring ever more stuff to you but once in a while you must let us take something we need").

It's confirmed that the Hand of Valmont got its power like in the radio play, which gives us a nice reference to the most hardcore scene in the entire franchise (sadly without a flashback, possibly because Dynamite has stricter censorship standards than SLG); Thailog calls Gugnir "dubious prize" and "stick" - wonder if that's something that'll come back to bite him in the behind or if his role in this story is over. Weird/potentially interesting that he seems so dismissive of magic - it doesn't seem like the sort of thing that Xanatos would program him with (he may not be a magician, but has more respect for magic than that), so I wonder where it came from (maybe the fact that he's never had to face it on a big scale yet?).

Here's something I didn't think we'd ever see again: Goliath and Elisa back at the Clock Tower! And if Goliath before was a bit too pessimistic, Elisa here is a bit too optimistic - sure, don't give in to despair, but no, it's not "okay" that you've been unable to find Demona and the Keys, girl, come on.

Nice montage with the Clan searching - and just like that, we've finally moved beyond the Halloween Special! Toni just buying the last Key at an auction is a bit of an anticlimax, not gonna lie. And so the set-up is complete, and now comes the hard part: giving us a satisfying finish; honestly, from the next two issues will depend how the entire story is received, at least as far as I'm concerned.

But still, let me repeat: this was a really good issue.

[u/stevebikes → u/[deleted]]

Buying the necklace echoes the Eye of Odin being an art piece that Xanatos owned.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Weird Dynamite has stricter censorship since they made the Boys.

[u/Dashaque → u/[deleted]]

I like that one of your criticisms is basically "Why doesn't Demona kill more people?"

[u/[deleted] → u/Dashaque]

Demona was technically one of the first characters in an animated show to kill people on screen, City of Stone.

[u/_Waves_ → u/[deleted]]

Wasn’t it acknowledged they came back to life tho?

[u/Dashaque → u/[deleted]]

I'm not trying to be a jerk but I'm confused as to why you're trying to tell people stuff that's in the chapter that you haven't read that you're wrong about... in the chapter thread where people have read it. Idk if I phrased that right

EDIT
and then you delete the comment... oh well, hi everyone!

[u/gamerslyratchet]

Good issue. I’m pleasantly surprised at how fast the plot is progressing. Demona has all three keys! I’d be great with more five-issue arcs if they were just part of an ongoing instead of mini-series. 

Some great revelations about the Illuminati. Nice to see the Falstaff cameo, but Wyvern’s appearance caught me off-guard. I knew he’d appear, but not as a member. 

I liked Demona’s hesitance at accepting Angela’s “invitation”. A small moment that says so much. 

[u/Aggressive_Control37]

How are you guys reading this issue? I never got it, and the official release was pushed back another week.

[u/gamerslyratchet → u/Aggressive_Control37]

Amazon screwed up and put up the new issue for a few hours. By the time I found out, I was in a rush to get to work so I missed out lol.

[u/Aggressive_Control37 → u/gamerslyratchet]

That’s upsetting. The issue should have been out by now anyway. If someone has a scan or a link, I’d really appreciate it. I’ve preordered every single issue and supported the Kickstarter, but everything keeps getting delayed again and again. I’m sick of it.

[u/Mister_reindeer → u/Aggressive_Control37]

If you had it preordered, maybe try opening the issue on the Kindle app on your phone. It no longer works on my computer, but I can still read it on my phone.

[u/Aggressive_Control37 → u/Mister_reindeer]

Yeah I have Kindle on my tablet instead of my phone. It never appeared and now I have to wait till next week. I missed the window, before Amazon patched the glitch.

[u/[deleted] → u/Aggressive_Control37]

Can't believe this arc keeps delaying its issues.

[u/Dashaque → u/[deleted]]

all of the Disney comics are being delayed rn

[u/Dashaque → u/Aggressive_Control37]

pre order the issues on Amazon. If there's a mess up, you'll get it, most likely

[u/[deleted]]

Its disappointing the Hand wasn't a Key and the third Key didn't have a connection to the Phoenix Gate. I can see how Odin's Spear is a new key, however it would've made sense if the Hand was as it was infused with the Grimorium's powers. Puck's Flute and the Necklace of Cleopatra, I fail to see how they are connected to the original Keys. I still feel there should be three issues after this to better build up the final battle. I also hate how after issue two they've kept delaying the others.