*I was sent a copy of SubZero in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Oni Press and Junepurr for my copy of this graphic novel*
Synopsis:
To save her people, Princess Clove will have to do the unthinkable—marry her greatest enemy!
Clove is the last remaining heir of her Cerulean Dragon clan, fighting in a seemingly endless 300-year-war against the vast Crimson Empire. With no end to the war in sight, Clove agrees to leave her sheltered homeland in favor of a political marriage with the heir to the enemy Crimson Dragon clan, Prince Kyro.
Raised on the battlefields and feared by his rivals, the cutthroat prince is first to notice that Clove is hiding a dangerous secret she’s been working tirelessly to protect.
As tensions rise between these unlikely allies, the fragile peace brokered by their marriage is threatened by those who wish to continue the war. Now fighting in the world of her enemies and fighting a surprising attraction to Kyro, Clove discovers that achieving peace is far more dangerous than she could have ever imagined.
Review:
I first came across SubZero when browsing Webtoon and I did check out the first few pages before saving it to check out later. Well, that never happened, so when the opportunity to read the official volume came up, I knew I had to.
The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous. You can really tell a lot of hard work and love went into creating this graphic novel. My only issue with the illustrations were that the dialogue and order of panels was a little confusing to read at times. A few times I found myself skipping over dialogue because it wasn’t flowing too well.
My other issue with SubZero was there not being a whole lot of story going on considering the length. This graphic novel is over 300 pages long, which is fairly long if you ask me, so the pace felt quite slow. The little snippets of world building were really interesting, I just wish more of that happened rather than the pages and pages of less important dialogue.
I would have also liked to have seen Clove and Kyro’s relationship develop more. He goes from not wanting to see her to suddenly being ok with the engagement. You don’t get to see this change and I feel like that would have made this graphic novel so much better. I’m all for appreciating good art work, but the story did lack slightly. Not that it wasn’t interesting, it definitely was, but not enough happened.
Although saying that, I would definitely check out the second volume whenever that gets published. I’m interested to see where this story goes and I’m a big fan of Oni Press, so I’m always up for checking out their new releases.
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