'Head Lopper & The Quest For Mulgrid's Stair' - Andrew Maclean, Jordie Bellaire (Image)


With high stakes action and big imagination, Norgal and Agatha embark on a quest to find an invisible staircase to the heavens, atop which sits Mulgrid the All-Knowing. With dark assassins everywhere, Norgal hopes the aid of Mulgrid will give him the upper hand. Slashing their way through gorgons, bombing their way past gargantuan spiders, and navigating the politics of a kingdom on the brink of collapse, the fellowship must make teamwork a priority to survive.

Collects HEAD LOPPER #13-16

Back at the end of November, I was going through my comic book shelves and realised that it had been ages since I read, or had even seen, any new ‘Head Lopper. So I had a quick look on Amazon and saw, pretty much straight away, that there was a whole new volume waiting to be read. That’ll teach me to keep an eye out a little more thoroughly 😉 Anyway… I didn’t hang around and grabbed a copy straight away, only for life to really get in the way and for the book to sit in a TBR pile (and then my bag and then back to a TBR pile and so on) for the next few weeks until it was last night and I finally got round to reading it. Was ‘The Quest for Mulgrid’s Stair’ worth the wait? What do you think…? Of course it was…

If you’ve read my reviews for Books One, Two and Three then you’ll know that I’m a big fan of ‘Head Lopper’ (albeit a big fan who somehow repeatedly misses the books coming out…) and that leaves me in a position where I find myself struggling to find anything new to say… So I’m not even going to try 😊 ‘The Quest For Mulgrid’s Stair’ is ‘Head Lopper’ doing what it does so very well; an irascible hero cutting his way through life with a bloody great sword, daring life to try and stop him. It’s brilliant, loads of action alongside a plot that feels like it’s only just starting to let us know what it’s all about. Okay… There is something new to say 😉 Book Three started to give us clues to a larger plot playing out and ‘The Quest For Mulgrid’s Stair’ builds on this, showing us just why Norgal has been carrying Agatha’s head around with all this time. It does help if you’ve read Book Three fairly recently though, just to warn you in advance… I hadn’t and it took me a little while to get caught up. Once I did though, I had a lot of fun reading through Norgal’s latest quest (which plays out against a Kingdom that is about to collapse) and his encounters with not only Medusa but a whole load of giant spiders at the same time. It’s that hint of something larger though that is the real hook and not just for the plot, there’s a much wider world out there and you get the feeling that we’ll be seeing more of it soon.

There’s also an interesting shift from ‘Norgal the lone wanderer’ (well, wandering with a talking head for company but you know what I mean) to ‘Norgal, travelling with a Fellowship’ that promises more interesting twists and turns to come as Norgal now has to get used to working as part of a team rather than following his own path. Is Norgal actually a little kind-hearted under that big white beard? Maybe… I’m with this story for the long haul anyway but it will be fun to watch this particular strand play out.

And… back to the stuff that we already knew. Andrew Maclean is clearly on top of his plot and looks to be adopting an ‘if it ain’t broke…’ approach to the artwork. Well, it isn’t broke so… 😉 Jordie Bellaire’s colours, for me, really bring out Norgal’s world and the explosive mayhem that he causes within it. It’s a winning combination and long may it continue basically.

‘The Quest for Mulgrid’s Stair’ is another more than solid entry to the annals of Norgal and well worth your time. If you’ve read the first three books then I’d say you’re in for a bit of a treat.

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