'The year is 1849, and the future state of California is under the control of former soldiers from the Mexican-American War. Their leader, General Gomez, is busy buying up the locals' land for pennies on the dollar, so that he and his cronies can maximize their profits from the coming gold rush. But he and his men are dogged by a series of masked, would-be avengers all calling themselves Zorro. They are an almost laughable annoyance, simple peasants living out the fantasy of a local legend. Until one man shows up and starts picking off Gomez's men one by one, as stealthy as a fox. He brandishes a sword which he uses to carve the letter Z into his victims' cheeks... Could this be the true Zorro?'
I feel like we don't get enough books featuring Zorro. He's one of the first masked superheroes, yet we don't get many stories with him. I remember growing up and occasionally seeing re-runs of the 1950's television series, and there were the films with Antonio Banderas in the late 90's and early 2000's, but other than that I never really got to experience much of the character, despite him seeming to be one of those pop culture figures that everyone knew.
Zorro seemed to be a figure bigger than his books or his films, where people who have never read or watched anything with the character know about him. They might not know who he is under the mask, or what motivates him, but they know he's a masked swordsman who cuts the letter Z into things as his symbol. So when I saw that Europe Comics were releasing a new book that would be telling a Zorro story I was extremely excited to get my hands on it.
Don Vega makes the smart decision to tell its own Zorro story, instead of directly trying to adapt the books written by Johnston McCulley, who seemed to take a rather slap-dash approach to the stories, where there were wild inconsistencies or contradiction between entries. Here, the story begins in 1849, where California is under the control of former soldiers from the Mexican-American War. The book begins with General Gomez having already stolen much of the land he can find, using his men to drive out the rightful owners, using the law to claim the land from the Mexican owners.
However, there's one piece of land he's desperate to own that he can't yet, that of the Don Vega family. The land contains a gold mine that the general is desperate to legally own, but because the Don Vega family are American citizens he can't just take it the way he has everything else. Instead, he's devised a plan to lure the son of the Vega family home from Spain, so that he can get him to sign the land over to him. Unfortunately, Gomez is also having to deal with rebellion from the locals, where the people have started to take on the mask of Zorro, a legendary figure, to fight back. Whilst these poor and weak people are no match for Gomez things take a turn when the real Zorro appears to arrive on the scene, and begins to challenge Gomez and his men.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about this book is the way that Zorro is a well know figure before the book even begins. With Gomez taking over everything and the people ground down under his boot ordinary citizens have begin to wear black masks, leaving painted symbols around, trying to use the idea of Zorro to instil fear in their oppressors. It's just a shame that none of them are a match for Gomez and his small army, so any time anyone does manage to stand against him it always ends in failure.
This is the place that the real Zorro finds himself, in a community that is close to breaking point, where people have been using his image as a way of striking back, but have almost lost their faith in the real Zorro ever coming to help them.
I loved this set-up, not only because it shows how beloved a figure Zorro is, but made it feel weighty, that this isn't just someone putting on a mask to do good, but a statement of defiance, a legacy that needs to be earned by the man wearing the mask. To anyone who's familiar with the Zorro mythology it's obvious that this real Zorro is Don Vega, having returned to help his people and take his family home back from Gomez, but it still works so well, even knowing that. The book doesn't rely on having Zorro's identity a mystery, and instead makes it about Vega's journey. One of the best moments of the book was when he learns that his own father was the Zorro before him, and gets to put on his father's mask, the mask that is more familiar to Zorro fans; though I'd have liked this moment to have come earlier in the book so that we could have seen him take down the villain wearing his father's mask.
That's one of my biggest criticisms of the book, that I didn't get enough Zorro. The book is pretty short, and for what it is it's brilliant, and I loved every moment of it, but I wanted more. I would have been happy for the book to have been twice as long, for readers to be able to spend more time with Zorro, and Don Vega outside of the costume.
The story moved at a decent pace, and we got time for some great action sequences, as well as character development. I just hope that this is a first book, and that we'll get more to come later because this book help me to remember just how amazing Zorro is, and I want more from the character now.
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