We've talked about the Realm Knights and the Hunters. I also wanted to include the other side of this, because Grimm Fairy Tales has groups worth talking about that aren't built around saving anybody. Bad Girls is one of them.
The five-issue Bad Girls series from 2012 brings together an alliance that gives Sela several problems at once.
The names to keep in mind are the Mistress of Limbo, Baba Yaga, the Goblin Queen, the Queen of Spades and Venus. That is already a pretty serious problem for Sela before you get into what brings them together or what they intend to do with it.
And I think one of the useful things about this story is that it makes you look at the villains together. When you follow individual books and arcs, you tend to associate a character with the problem they caused in that particular story. Put several of them into the same conflict and suddenly the heroes are dealing with overlapping histories and ambitions.
There is also an immediate question with any villain alliance: how much do these people actually want the same thing? They can agree that Sela is in their way. They can agree that more power would be useful. That doesn't necessarily mean they have the same plan for what happens after they get it.
The Mistress of Limbo is important to the setup because she's the one gathering allies from across the realms. So this isn't just several villains accidentally showing up to fight the same person. There is an effort to bring them together, and the involvement of a powerful artifact gives that effort something concrete to revolve around.
If somebody joins you because the arrangement helps them, their loyalty has a condition attached to it. The minute the arrangement stops being useful, you have a problem. And when you're dealing with people who already have grudges and schemes of their own, those conditions can get complicated very quickly.
Baba Yaga is probably the easiest person in this group to use as an example. She has her own reasons for wanting power, and her relationship with the Dark One gives those reasons a particular direction. Being dangerous to Sela doesn't mean she's on the Dark One's side.
By Bad Girls #4, her interest in using the crown against the Dark One is important enough that Sela tries to work with that opening. Sela is trying to get her to turn against the others rather than simply treating the entire alliance as one person with five bodies.
That is a much more interesting situation to me than everybody lining up according to whether they're good or evil. Sela has to understand what Baba Yaga wants. She doesn't have to like her, forgive her or suddenly forget the danger she represents to recognize that there may be something she can use.
And from Baba Yaga's side, helping someone else at a particular moment doesn't automatically make her trustworthy. A shared enemy can explain cooperation without settling everything that happened before it. I think that is an important distinction in a universe where alliances can change depending on the threat.
The Goblin Queen brings another recognizable part of the larger story into the group. She has her own history with Sela, and her connection to goblins gives her a different identity from the other people standing beside her. She isn't just a second version of Baba Yaga with a crown on.
When I look at a group like this, I want the members to create different problems. Otherwise, you could replace half the lineup with unnamed sorcerers and get roughly the same story. The Goblin Queen already comes with connections and baggage that make her involvement matter to people we've been following.
The Queen of Spades takes the alliance into Wonderland. And I think that's worth emphasizing, because Wonderland has such a particular presence in these books. Bringing one of its rulers into a larger conflict means that side of the universe is actively involved, rather than just being a place somebody mentions in passing.
Her involvement gives the alliance another connection beyond Earth, and Wonderland becomes part of the situation the heroes have to navigate. So the conflict can keep widening even while the immediate danger is already in front of them.
Venus is another person who makes the lineup more complicated. Once again, Grimm Fairy Tales is reaching beyond the stories most people immediately associate with the title. You've got Greek and Roman mythology mixed into the same shared universe as fairy tales, horror creatures and Wonderland.
Just having a goddess involved changes the way I look at the group. These characters aren't all coming from the same background or bringing the same kind of authority with them. There is no reason to assume they would see themselves as equals, even if they are willing to cooperate for the moment.
And Venus being associated with love doesn't make her benevolent here. She's involved in an alliance that is making things considerably worse for Sela and the people she's trying to protect.
With the Mistress of Limbo, that same idea applies in another way. Her title gives you a place to connect her to, but the alliance she helps assemble reaches beyond that place. A character associated with one part of the setting can still become a serious problem for people living somewhere else.
That's one of the things the shared-universe approach allows here. The different realms have their own identities, but they don't stay politely inside their own boundaries. A conflict involving people from those places can arrive on Earth, and ordinary people there don't get a vote on whether they want to be involved.
The immediate danger includes the Reavers. So while the villains have their plans, Sela and the others have creatures to deal with in front of them. I think that matters because it keeps the consequences of the alliance from being entirely abstract. The heroes don't have unlimited time to sit around and work out the politics behind the attack.
Sela is joined on the opposing side by Britney Waters, Samantha Darren and Nathan Cross. That is another reason this series belongs in a conversation about groups, even though the title is aimed at the villains. The threat pulls together people we've been following from different directions.
Britney and Samantha also have connections to Sela that predate this fight. She isn't just assembling the nearest strangers who happen to have powers. There are existing relationships involved, and that gives the cooperation a history beyond the immediate need to survive.
Nathan brings his Neverland experience into it. Having him involved is another reminder that the story has moved well beyond one character handling a single fairy-tale problem. Several parts of the line are colliding, and the heroes have to respond to the combined situation.
The crown is a useful detail because it puts an object at the center of questions about power and control. Once Sela begins understanding how the Reavers are being controlled, dealing with the problem involves more than continuing to fight whatever is sent at her.
That is the sort of thing I want a story like this to explore. If an enemy has a way to keep sending danger at you, beating the next creature may keep you alive without solving anything. At some point you have to understand what is making the attacks possible and who can be persuaded, stopped or separated from it.
And that brings the story back to the alliance itself. It can be dangerous and vulnerable at the same time. The members bring power together, but their individual motives give Sela something to investigate. Figuring out where those motives differ may be more useful than trying to overpower every person at once.
I don't think that makes the villains less threatening. If anything, it gives you more to watch. You're dealing with the harm they can cause together and the possibility that one of them is using the arrangement for something the others won't accept.
What gives Bad Girls something to discuss beyond its title is that the characters have reasons to work together and reasons that cooperation might fall apart. Sela has to deal with both. There is the threat in front of her, and there are the people behind it who may be willing to hurt one another if they see a better opportunity.
Baba Yaga wanting to get at the Dark One is the detail that makes that especially clear. Sela can see a possible opening there. Whether somebody is your enemy and whether you can use their next decision are two different questions, and this group gives her plenty of reason to think about the second one.
We've talked about the Realm Knights and the Hunters. I also wanted to include the other side of this, because Grimm Fairy Tales has groups worth talking about that aren't built…
· Comics / Grimm Universe