'Don Vega' with story and art by Pierre Alary is a nice take on a classic action hero.

California in 1849 was about to be in the midst of a gold rush. Greedy land owners are buying up land for cheap and exploiting workers. Into this oppression arises a group of masked avengers calling themselves Zorro, but Zorro has been gone for years, so what is this new sighting mean?

I was pleasantly surprised by this story, and enjoyed it. The art is pretty good too.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

NOTE: I received a free preliminary, and likely unedited copy of this book from Netgalley for the purposes of providing an honest, unbiased review of the material. Thank you to all involved.

I am Zorro!

I have recently become a fan of the Pulp character Zorro, with much thanks to the line of comics from Dynamite Comics. Eventually, I plan to read the original serialized novel, but I have read a few things inspired by it already and I’ve loved every minute. For me, Western Comics have become a surprise hit for me, considering its not really a genre I consume too much in any other medium. And of these, Zorro has easily become my favorite. Yes, you could say its more of a swashbuckling adventure, but a lot of it deals with cattle ranching and horse rearing, so I’m sticking to my guns lol.

Pierre Alary has set out to create what I assume is a new generation of Zorro if I recall the original chronology at all. Alta California has fallen, and a new wave of exploitation and evil has befallen the land. Memories of the man once called Zorro, “The fox” , is a distant legend that folks often cling to in order to have hope in a hopeless time. There are a group of farmers that occasionally don the trademark mask, to usually disastrous results. That is, until the “real Zorro” finally returns and begins to make life hard for gold-grubbing career criminals. This is presumably the son of the original Zorro, but it’s left vague enough that I would have to do more research to make 100 percent certain. Considering the time jump, it could even be the third Zorro…

In this story, Zorro has been shifted from a Robin hood sort of character to a depiction of chaos and revenge. This Zorro borrows a lot from characters such as V from V for Vendetta, or even Spartacus. He exists as more of an idea, a thing that many people see as the only way to get people to rise up against oppression. As a result, there isn’t just one Zorro, there is a band of Zorros that ultimately help the “real one” in the end. I hope there ends up being a second volume of this, as this idea is the most intriguing part of the story, and I’d love to see how this pans out. Like, who is the leader of these fake Zorros before Don Vega came back? When did it start? who adopted the logo that children are seen painting on walls etc. Many questions that I’d love to see answered.

Due to this being seemingly “part one” of a longer story, it somewhat rushes to the climax at the end, and you really don’t get much characterization for Don Vega. Had there been a longer page-count I could see that this would have been different, but under the circumstance, this was good, and there weren’t any plot holes for the most part. If the author has anything else in English (I presume he is French) I’d love to read it, I see on Amazon, that he has written some Conan stuff, so I’m definitely interested.

All-in-all good entry into the Zorro franchise. Perhaps not perfect, as some ideas were not fully realized, but I enjoyed it a lot and will be patiently hoping for more. If you are a fan of Zorro, or swashbuckling or western comics, I’d definitely recommend this story. it’s an interesting take on the Pulp legend, and keeps you wanting more.

A new kind of origin story for Zorro that's not terribly interesting. I learned a bit about the period of flux the state of California was in in the mid 19th century as it was being added to the States, and that was informative, but the story is unremarkable: capitalist villains oppressing workers, Zorro fights back. Meh. Maybe this is the standard for Zorro stories - I haven't read many - so maybe fans will like this more but I was hoping for a bit more novelty than the standard hero-y antics. Art's ok - nothing special. A readable but not very compelling book.

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.

Oh, that was good. I found this in the "read now" section of Netgalley and I feel like I lucked out. This was an excellent read and I am definitely going to pick up a physical copy.
A retelling of the Zorro story with a solid, compelling plot and darkly realistic elements, it is enhanced by the art. The artist skillfully captures the spirit of the setting, and was able to clearly convey even the subtlest emotions of the characters.
I hope that there's a sequel in the works, although the ending, I must admit, was pretty perfect as it was.

Zorro will always have a place in my heart because he is a California native super hero. This version is a pretty straightforward retelling, full of the adventure and swordplay and horseback riding and justice that is key to the story and character. Unfortunately, this comic was too short to really let the characters and the plot breathe - I would have loved it to have been twice the length to have more action.

Who doesn't love another Zorro story? Don Vega by Pierre Alary is a well crafted and designed addition to those stories. This will be a great addition to any graphic novel collection.

In the cut-and-thrust world of the California gold rush, land-grabs and other machinations are benefiting only one man, and to a person the natives, Mexicans and a heck of a lot of other people are or are about to be suffering. Cue the return of the Zorro legend – the freedom-fighter turned rob-the-rich-to-feed-the-poor character makes as much of a stir amongst the enslaved miners as would Spartacus with the gladiators. But is he merely a legend? In the end, this does feel like a standard, western-tinged story, but in adding in a little bit of discussion about the nature of Zorro and what his inspiration can lead to, it nudges towards a more modern outlook. That's not to say this is all meta and new-school, for this has much too much that is classical about it for that. It can get a little confusing at times, but generally this succeeds, and for people who like the setting and milieu more than I do, this will be deemed a welcome volume. Three and a half stars from me, to be getting on with.