The Campbells v5: “The Three Curses” – The Grand Finale

Remember this panel from volume one?

Welcome to the grand finale of “The Campbells,” where those curses play out once and for all — and a new one is thrown in.

Previously on The Campbells

The Campbells v5: “The Three Curses”

We Begin In the Future

If you’ve seen the cover, you recognize right away what’s happening.  That’s little Genova, all grown up and playing the pirate game.  While Itaca always craved the books, Genova was the hyper-active little sister who sought adventure and reveled in it, sometimes with a cry of, “We’re gonna die!”  But, still…

It makes sense that she’d be the one to go full-fledged pirate.

Carapepino is also on her ship.  The Campbells can never get rid of that little barnacle, can they?  He appears missing a hand, which I immediately fixated on. I knew that would be explained later, and it was.  Munuera didn’t miss a bit with this book.

But, wait, where’s her sister?  And her father?  And Baron Inferno?

Don’t worry, all will be explained in this supersized 64 page album.

San Brandamo Island

As you saw being set up in volume four, the grand finale happens on San Brandamo Island, a tough to locate place that’s killed its fair share of soldiers and pirates over the years.  The booty there is the stuff of legend, and it draws everyone in.

The locals are dangerous and create the first round of rollicking adventure.  That’s followed by a series of traps and protective measures built into the chamber housing the treasure.  And then there are — more people who show up.  (I’m staying away from spoilers as best I can here.)

The action is so good in this book that I’m only ever disappointed it’s so short.  Munuera uses a light-hearted touch.  Even in the previous volume when all the friendly ships were firing on each other, Munuera played it for laughs and darn near everyone survived. At least, all the named characters you might be following made it through unscathed.

Here, the battle with the island’s natives is relatively benign. Some natives take huge hits, but there’s also a lot of played-for-laughs crotch kicks and frying pans to the face.

Munuera’s art is made for this kind of work, though.  This style of his works best on animated characters who are making big gestures and large movements.  Slapstick violence is a natural fit for him here.

I’ll just jump ahead to say this: The final sword fight between the Brothers Campbell is great, but I wanted it to go on for another ten pages.  I would have been happy following a complicated action scene of two equally-match brothers going at it for pages on end. Munuera can pull that off.  The backdrop of a golden treasure in an underground lair is custom made for this kind of thing.

This is half Indiana Jones, half MacGyver, and more than a few percent “His Majesty, McDuck” by Don Rosa.  (The book is so good that it’s more than 100%, yes.)  unuera dedicated previous volumes to Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks, and Burt Lancaster.  I bet doing the research for this book was an awful lot of fun. Those are some fun movies to have to study….

Comedy vs. Drama

I think Munuera strikes a nice balance with the two tones of the book.  Yes, there are times when forward plot progress stops while Munuera takes a half page to do a bit.  That’s OK.  It’s so entertaining that you’ll breeze right through it.

I fear someone might complain about the story not being “tight” enough, but I would disagree with that.  Munuera covers a lot of ground, but he also maintains the tone of the book.  He earns those laughs.

It reminds me a bit of the early days of “Bone,” before it became even more about the over-all plot.  There were times for the Bones to just goof off at each other’s expense, or to go and have a small side adventure.  So it is with “The Campbells,” a book about estranged brothers but, most of all, families and how you can choose them.

It’s also about the conniving assistant and the rise of politics as the new piracy, and how you are the sum of the five people closest to you in many ways.

Munuera touches on societal issues with a deft touch, but he also entertains and thrills along the way.  There are genuinely emotional moments in this book, including two that happen back to back in the end that could produce fluids from the corner of your eye if you’re not careful.

Tying Up Threads

We discover the story behind Nancy Morgane’s death, and it’s more tragic and sad than you might have thought.  It adds nuances to the entire series.  You will want to go back and reread the series with all the answers mind now to see how different the book feels.  The story changes Baron Inferno’s character in a way I wasn’t expecting, also.

I read the first four books immediately before reading the fifth and I’m ready to go back and do it all over again to absorb everything Munuera pulled off here.

But that’s not all.  The other big question that comes up out of the fourth volume is, “Wait, who is Genova’s father?”  And, again, Munuera answers that in an interesting way that has callbacks on previous story chapters. It’s not what you expect, but it is satisfying.

I found myself at one point looking very closely at the way he draws Genova to see if I could pick up an idea of who the father was.  Then I realized I was being silly. This is a comic book.  That’s one of the mysteries of the book, so he’s not going to give it away so obviously.  Let the story play out…

The End

As amazing and as wonderful as this book is, it’s difficult to review without spoilers. I don’t want to ruin anything here, so maybe I’ll do a follow-up article later to analyze how the pieces of the series fit together. This is a series that started off as a silly comedy piece, but very quickly found its footing and began laying down the pieces of a larger narrative that’s heartbreaking and wonderful all at once.

Munuera did a great job in bringing it all to a close in this book.  As sorry as I am to see the series end, I’m also very happy that there’s one complete story here, and that Munuera didn’t stretch it out to milk meaningless books out of it.  Plus, there’s plenty of room at the end of the day to tell more stories, if something comes to Munuera’s mind down the road.

For now, I’m excited to see what he might come up with next. He’s done a few different things in the past.  I hope the next one stretches a new artistic muscle for him, while maintaining his flair for comedy and action.

I also hope his “Zorglub” books get an English translation someday…

Recommended?

Without a doubt. “The Campbells” is at the top tier of books I’ve discovered in the last couple of years that I’ve been devouring comics out of Europe. Munuera’s art is so expressive and playful, while his story combines the drama with the comedy effectively.

I can’t recommend it enough, I really can’t.

And a special note of appreciation for Emma Wilson, the translator.  This book reads like something a smart native English speaker would write.  It doesn’t feel like hacky translation. The word choices and the flow of the dialogue are smooth, with punchlines delivered with accuracy.  A Spaniard wrote this book originally for a French publisher.  I don’t know how many layers it went through before it got to Wilson, but it’s a great reading experience.  She nailed it.

— 2018.087 —

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