Rex Mundi In Three Parts

Good Evening.

This is part one of a three part series about Rex Mundi, which I have purchased in three trade editions…

I have to admit that as I have gotten older, the superhero comic has gotten kind of stale for me so, to counter that aspect of reading comics I decided that I would broaden my horizons per say, and try to read comics outside my comfort zone ( which is again the superhero comic ) and while this series was not recommended to me, I none the less gravitated toward it due to the subject matter….but I need to do a little back-story first.

As is the case with alot of comics series today, Rex Mundi started it’s life at a different publisher namely Image comics and was later moved to Dark Horse Comics, presumably to garner a better chance of the comic being give the movie treatment and has been there ever since.

This series of comics was first published back in 2004 by Image comics and subsequently, the trades have been published by Dark Horse….

Written by Arvid Nelson with Art by Eric J, Rex Mundi is a combination of Murder Mystery, Quest, and Intrigue set against the backdrop of an alternate reality Earth, which in this time-line the American Civil War ended in a stalemate , the Catholic Church controls Europe and Sorcery controls Political Power.

Book One- Rex Mundi-The Guardian of the Temple

written by Arvid Nelson and art by Eric J ( hey, notice, I actually put the writer ahead of the artist! )

We are introduced to Dr Julien Saunier, graduated at the top of his class…yet chose to open a practice that takes care of the ordinary rather than the aristocracy of France.

Saunier is contacted by a father Marin at his home.

Marin has a secret to tell the good doctor…the father is the caretaker of a cache of medieval manuscripts, and one of them has been taken…but by who…and thus the mystery begins.

The mystery becomes murder, when the father is discovered to know too much and digging where he doesn’t belong.

A murder made to look like an accident because of a small gas leak….and the murderer…the classic noir type of villain, short, heavyset, cigarette smoking, efficient at what he does, and somehow involved with the church…but he is not what he seems to be either.

After his friend’s murder, the good doctor is drawn into the mystery, which takes him from a brothel, where a lead he is looking for ( a woman of ill repute named Marie Christine ) who he finds rather gruesomely murdered to a catacombs somewhere underneath the streets of France, where he comes face to face with a with three statues, that might be Greek gods, but he doesn’t recognize any of them, although one does remind him of a saint possibly.

Unfortunately, the good doctor makes the mistake of coming into contact with a certain noir type villain, who is determined that the good doctor will not be able to speak of what he has come across…ever.

Okay, I know that I have only given you some bits and pieces of what unfolds here in the pages of book the first, but I didn’t say that there were going to be spoilers here okay?

Thus ends part one of this three part post.