REX MUNDI BOOK ONE: THE GUARDIAN OF THE TEMPLE

By Arvid Nelson, Eric J, and Jeremy Cox

Rex Mundi (Book One: The Guardian of the Temple)is a quest for the Holy Grail, only let’s throw in elements of murder/mystery, sorcery, a twist in historic timeline where the Roman Catholic Church stomped out the protestant reformation and remains politically strong, and we’ll put it all into an alternate 1933 Paris where secret societies and guilds are deeply rooted into society, the mysterious inquisition are a feared and respected authority acting in the name of the church, and Europe in on the brink of world war, but not the war you’d expect.  If you think this all sounds interesting, then this is the book for you.  There is similarities in the plot to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, but it’s important to remember that this work predates that.  It’s written by Arvid Nelson I would say this is his definitive work so far. He’s done some stories for Astonishing X-Men, JSA: Classified, The Goon, a miniseries called Zero Killer, is presently working on “Kull” for Dark Horse and will be doing “Thulsa Doom” for Dynamite Entertainment.  If you are interested in  topics like “The Da Vinci Code” or “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail”, then this is the book for you.  One of most fascinating aspects of the story is how Arvid Nelson blends both medieval and modern history without it feeling out of place and unrealistic. He has done a lot of research on the legends and history surrounding elements of the Holy Grail and it shows in the detail of the story. Not much is mentioned about the holiest of artifacts in this first book, but it doesn’t take a private investigator to see where the story is leading to. Every discovery and revelation  is intriguing and fascinating drawing deep into Catholic history and legends, and there’s lots of them . There is a noir-ish element to the style, dark and moody.  Eric J’s art is realistic not only with his characters, but with fashion and scenery of the times. The use of classic photographs throughout the book is a nice touch, helping the story feel as if it was part of our history. Each chapter ends with prose’, in the form of the Le Journal de la Liberete newspaper, filling us in with key elements pertaining to the world around the story.  If events in history turned out a little different for us, this is one cool interpretation of how things could have been.  The elements of sorcery are subtle, but play an important role without taking away from the realism and complement the medieval influence I was talking about earlier. This is the beginning of a rich and fascinating journey to find the Holy Grail, this is easily one of my favorite graphic novel series. It surprised me that it slipped under the radars of recognition.

Martin

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