We all know the 1812 German fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. The story about a brother and sister kidnapped by a cannibalistic witch who cleverly escape by outwitting their captor. Zenescope, under writer Ben Meares and artist Allan Otero, reimagine Gretel’s origins and the consequence of the choices she has made over the past 300 years.
Summary:
The year is 1688 when an American man, Samuel, falls in love with a witch named Tituba. The couple quickly relocated to Salem, Massachusetts where their marriage remained a secret due to their different skin colors. During this time Tituba gave Samuel a piece of her heart to grant him similar powers she possessed as a witch. As time went on Tituba granted more pieces of her heart to other women as a means to liberate them from their confines. As more women were granted this power the people of Salem became fearful of these powers and began burning witches at the stake. This forced Samuel and Tituba to move to Germany where they would not be hunted and could live peacefully.
Once in Germany Tituba begins plotting her revenge on humanity, which is to eliminate the majority of humanity and enslave the rest. In order to do this Tituba needs to find a person who can hunt down and consume the witches she has created. One day Hansel and Gretel are captured by Tituba, who kills Hansel and starves Gretel with the sole purpose of making her eat her brother’s heart. Once Gretel eats Hansel’s heart she will gain powers similar to that of a witch along with a hatred of their kind creating the desire to kill them all and consume their power. Unknown to Gretel and Samuel, who trained her to use her powers, this was part of Tituba’s plan. After Gretel consumed enough witches Tituba would eat Gretel’s heart and combine it with her own power to enact her revenge on humanity.
After 274 years, countless witch hunting and power absorbing, and not knowing the name of the witch who killed her brother, Gretel is thrown into a final conflict with the witch that created her, Tituba, to determine the fate of humanity and possibly get a piece of revenge for the life she had to suffer through.
Significance:
Zenescope’s latest graphic novel, Gretel, has reimagined the classic fairy tale for a new generation. This is done through providing the backstory of the witch Tituba who started out having sympathy for humanity, but eventually seeks revenge upon them for killing her fellow witches. Yet, in order to carry out her revenge Tituba needs to create a witch who could track down and absorb other witches’ powers. After waiting several decades, she found Hansel and Gretel and continued her plan by killing Hansel and granting Gretel witch-based powers. Throughout this process we begin to see that Tituba is not evil but rather believes what she is doing is an end to a means allowing generation of witches to live in peace at the cost of only a few. Conversely, Gretel viewpoint is different as she was kidnapped, starved to near death, and forced to eat her brother’s heart and then cursed with witch powers. In response Gretel wants revenge against Tituba for the death of her brother and for the powers she does not want. It is not until Gretel meets Samuel who begins to train her that she begins to redirect her powers on killing witches as a means of getting revenge. In many ways, this reveals that Gretel was initially the victim, but has far exceed that status and is not innocent. Furthermore, Gretel only has one goal and that is to enact her revenge on Tituba and every other witch that gets in the way of plan. This creates an interesting dynamic between Tituba who uses Gretel to try to save an entire species and Gretel who is part of that species, doesn’t care, and wants to kill Tituba for using her. Thus, you are torn between Gretel and Tituba as they both have justifications for wanting to kill the other. The stakes between the two has never been higher as either humanity will survive or the witch species will be revitalized.
