The art for this comic… absolutely amazing!! This comic is in two parts, the first was the original story which is shown in black and white which move quickly. The second part is a continuation of Black Beth’s adventure and is in colour, personally I favoured this part where she stops the evil warlock from sacrificing his plan.

And can we take a second to appreciate the art of Black Beth!! A lot of female characters in comics normally don’t get armour and when they do it’s barely nothing, but she is badass and her amour is probably my favourite yet!!

I appreciate both a strong female lead and the damnation of the vengeful heart. Both are good messages.
I was a little bored during these stories, Al-Kadesh was my favorite, I liked the twist on who was good/bad.

Well, here's an oddity – a sword and sorcery character who appeared in precisely one 1988 special of horror comic Scream!, in a story which had itself been languishing in a drawer for 12 years, having originally been intended for an entirely different comic called Scream, cancelled before it even launched. But among the kids who read that special, one Alec Worley, whom it caught just right, as things do in childhood, and who thirty years further on, would be in a position to revive the character. His revival, and that twice-lost original, now brought together in this collection. But I'm letting this account be led by the writer, when really the appeal here is the art, the fabulous monochrome* visions of lethal crags and haunted moors. Hell, nobody even knows who wrote the original story anymore, only that the art was Blas Gallego, with a little help from Ian Gibson. It's a story of self-fulfilling prophecies, cruelty, revenge, Shakespeare by way of Kill Bill through a giallo filter – though while those are the cooler reference points, I can also absolutely see why Worley spent years thinking it shared an artist with odd early RPG Dragon Warriors, which had much the same spooky twist on classic fantasy tropes. And which I'd just been thinking about the night before I started reading this, because I was watching Hawk The Slayer, because that too is currently getting a comics revival from Rebellion, thanks to much the same story of having caught at the right time someone who'd go on to be a comics writer with the clout to make that happen. Despite all of which, it gets a mildly disparaging namecheck in Worley's introduction, because when you were into geeky stuff before that was cool, the narcissism of small differences remains a powerful force.

And then, decades down the line, the new stuff, finally paying off the original's final line, "For this is only...the beginning!", followed by a hopeful 'The End?' caption which must have looked for a long time as overly optimistic as Flash Gordon's. Except that this is not quite the same Black Beth; she's younger, punkier than the imperious glamour of the original, and her sidekick is no longer a dwarf, though to be honest in the original he seemed only temporarily to be one once the script specifically mentioned it, in much the same way as it referred to Beth's armour being leather while it was blatantly drawn as plate. Still, she remains sworn to combat evil in all its vile forms, which is the main thing, and more to the point, she's being drawn by DaNi, who is the perfect heir to Gallego in terms of atmospheric fantasy visuals. Indeed, when the stories were at their ripest (which I do not remotely intend as a criticism) – "Dragged from your beds by dead men, carried screaming into the moonlit wild, and bound deep beneath haunted ruins..." – I found myself wishing that either Gallego or DaNi could have worked with the much-missed Steve Moore when 2000AD was doing comics versions of his Tales Of Telguuth, as I think either of them would have caught the Clark Ashton Smith spirit of that damned world much better than most of the artistic collaborators he actually got.

*Excepting the longest and most recent story, The Devils Of Al-Kadesh. Which is in colour, and they're certainly not bad colours, nor is it a bad story. But somehow it dents the mood, and I hope any further outings will revert to black and white.

(Netgalley ARC)

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Rebellion Publishing for an advanced copy of the return of this classic comic character.

A popular theme in many sword and sorcery stores is the idea of the woman done wrong, and getting revenge on those she feels were responsible. Black Beth was a character who appeared in only two stories in the early eighties for the magazine Scream. The writer has been lost, but the artist was Blas Gallego famed Spanish illustrator with a career that spans almost 60 years. The continuing adventures of Black Beth are under the auspices of writer Alec Worley and the artist DaNi. Black Beth: Vengeance Be Thy Name contains both the origin tale with original art work and newer tales one in full colour.

The words of a witch tell a mad Count that a figure in black will pursue him unto death, and the name of this avenger is Beth. Coming to a small town under his dominion he finds a wedding underway with young Beth and her husband to be the focus of the event. The Count commands the town to be destroyed and Beth is left for dead, her family not as fortunate. Found by a blinded warrior Quido Beth is trained in the arts of war, with a final gift of all black armor completeing her transformation to Black Beth. Soon she leads a peasant revolt against the Count, with vengeance her inspiration. Newer stories include stories of Beth stopping child sacrifices, a near hanging, and finally a longer story involving sea creatures, living cities, flying creatures and an misunderstood witch.

The stories are great sword and sorcery stuff, plenty of swinging swords and odd magic, with some really cool ideas and great art. The art is outstanding, especially the newer work by DaNi, in both black and white and color. The story compliments the art and vice versa. Black Beth owes a little, maybe a lot to Red Sonja, and might seem a little square in the story. Quido is a very funny fellow, quick with a quip or a thrown battle ax, sometimes at the same time.

Fans of Conan or Red Sonja will for sure enjoy this graphic novel. The mix of classic art and style with the modern is good and does not distract from the story. The art especially DaNi is quite good and helps the story move along. A fun series of adventures

„Black Beth“ was my first Comic and I was pleasantly surprised!

I never read a comic before and I didn’t really knew what I could expect from it. I really enjoyed the idea of the story and also how it was drawn. I thought it’s interesting to add a colored story in the end but it worked really well as one whole story.

I also really liked the way how Beth was portrayed and how her amour looked.

But I think I would enjoyed it even more when it would have been a bit more backstory or more details in general. The End felt really rushed for me and I feel like five or ten more pages would have made the story more interesting for me.

I want to thank NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for providing me with this E-Arc!

I'm going to be honest, I found this anthology on NetGalley and the cover drew me in. I recently finished Catwoman in Rome, and I thought the art style was phenomenal. The cover for Black Beth was in a similar vein and so I applied to get the ARC. I was not disappointed.

Black Beth is a comic series that was a single shot comic drawn and written for SCREAM in the 1970's, however it never got off the ground. Black Beth was again reprinted in 1988. In 2022, Black Beth is getting another release along with four other stores drawn by various artists. Probably because the series was never picked up and fleshed out the same way as many of the Marvel or DC comics would be, Black Beth has more in common with the adventures of Conan. This anthology contains five single shot stories.

The first issue in the anthology is the first issue reprinted, to provide the reader with the backstory of Black Beth. The rest of the stories are pretty straight forward villain of the week type stories that could have easily ran in a magazine of other similar comics.

I really loved the art style of the comics, but I must admit that the issue of 'Black Beth and The Devils of Al-Kadesh' was my favourite. The colours were vibrant and the art absolutely stunning. The action flowed really nicely and story wise it was decently complex compared to the other four.

This is not a huge collection, 80 pages long. One can read it in a single sitting. If you like more darker fantasy stories, don't want to commit to something long running or want to take a glimpse at Comic history. This is a great book.

This is a unique volume in that the first issue is the original <i>Black Beth</i> comic from the 80s, and the remaining issues in this volume are modern adaptations. I thought it was cool that the art style changed in these later issues, even though issues 2-5 were all done by modern artists. One obvious difference is the use of color, but I was mostly amazed at the evolution of Beth’s eyebrows from story to story.

However, in terms of content, all these stories felt pretty weak. There’s really no emotional tie or background to Beth, and the stories sometimes felt totally abrupt and incomplete (esp. issue 2). Faces were all incredibly similar (I had trouble distinguishing male characters), and even from panel to panel, Beth’s expression rarely changes.

I believe this is stand-alone, but wouldn’t recommend it overall, nor would I read a sequel if released.

I voluntarily obtained a digital version of this book free from Netgalley and Rebellion Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Whoa Black Betty - bamalam- I mean Black Beth. This is an oddity, a one shot character from a Scream annual in the eighties, picked up in the Rebellion great character haul and revisited to see if there is anything there. Truth be told, there isn't much on the bones of the original story, not even a writers name. Its a pretty standard tale of vengeance which is basically a Red Sonja rip (and a movie rip at that). Like many a comic character the Black in her name refers to her soul - blackened for vengeance against the terrible lord that killed her newly-wed husband, and latterly all evil. Y'know. She also has black hair (naming rules being applied). But unlike the She-Devil with a sword, she is mainly covered in her armour.

So there are four tales here, in this thin collection that doesn't quite stretch to 100 pages. The initial story with the distinctive thin line black and white style of much of that British horror in Misty and Scream vein, impressionistic cross hatching, no greys. The original artist was Spaniard Blas Gallego, and the storytelling in the art suggests (though he denies it) that he might have also scripted it. The other tales are written by Alec Worley and illustrated by Greek artist DaNi. There are two little twist in the tale numbers and a longer more complex one shot - though they all involve magic of some form unlike the original tale. DaNi's style is looser that Gallego, still in monochrome for the first two tale, the one shot has block wash colouring though its indicative splashes rather than detailed. The art continues a semi-dreaminess of the original with thicker lines and less detail, though still pretty kinetic.

It is a little unclear why you would come to Black Beth when Red Sonja is out there, but if you can't look past Sonja's chain mail bikini then Beth's chaos armour might suit you instead. There isn't really enough to distinguish her, Worley appears to have changed half of her origin to stary off with, and these are fun short stories but nothing much to write home about.

This is a collection of 5 issues of Black Beth, including the original one from the 80's. Black Beth is a woman who has witnessed horrors and vowed from then on to seek vengeance on all forms of evil.

I think my favorite was “Black Beth and the Devils of Al-Kadesh”, the color palette and gradients are very nice and a great addition. Loooove Black Beth's design, both the 80's version and the updated design are super intense. I feel like often women characters won't get sick armor, but they did not shy away from making her look tough as hell. I will say some of the earlier stories (minus the original) move a bit too quickly for me, I think they were originally meant to be shorts featured in other media like magazines, but I think a longer edition would give more depth to her character and be interesting to see!

Thank you to Rebellion Publishing for providing me with a free advanced copy to review.

Storyline: 9/10

Artwork - black and white: 9/10

Artwork - colour: 9/10

Additional manga info: 10/10

You can tell that a manga is going to be worth your time when the author and the editorial team take the time (and pages) to give an overview of the origin story and how an unknown manga from 1988 was revived almost 30 years later.

The manga is split in two. The first section is the story of the original “Black Beth” as envisioned by Blas Gallego. It is a black & white publication depicting how Beth was robbed of her simple life and her training to become the skilled warrior from Rassau’s prophecy.

The second section continues Black Beth’s story on another adventure, but this time in a coloured format. This time, Beth has to stop an evil warlock from their sacrificial plan.

Overall, I liked that the story was easy to read, and the fact that the second story sticks to the original character development of Beth. I’m sure that fans of dark, YA, and fantasy will enjoy this read.

Special thanks to NetGalley, Rebellion, and the editorial team for giving me the opportunity to review the ARC in audiobook format and to you, my reader, for taking the time to read this honest personal book review.

If you are interested in other of my book reviews, make sure to follow me on GoodReads!

#LifeLongLearning #BlackBeth #NetGalley

This book is a compilation of stories about Black Beth, a young girl turned warrior. After a prophecy tells the Count Rassau that a woman named Beth would destroy him, he pre-emptively attacks a wedding ceremony killing most of the village. One of the only survivors is Beth, who takes on the role of avenger, training and becoming a fierce warrior.

These comics can clearly be seen to run through the course of time, with the first strip published in the 1960s. The style does evolve and even has one story in colour, and the art style is difficult to comment on as a result. The comics feel very dark, and often characters are standing quite far away so their features are barely discernible. You can just about work out what is happening in terms of movement, but later comics in the collection (those illustrated by DaNi) are better at this.

My primary issue is that I found myself not really liking the main character - Beth is quite abrupt when talking to people, actions things on her own accord without much consideration for her surroundings, and as a result I struggled to get behind this collection despite reading through all of them. I think comic book fans would really like this collection and despite my misgivings it was very easy to read, it just didn't hit the sweet-spot for me sadly.

<i>Many thanks to Rebellion Publishing for providing a complimentary copy of this through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review</i>

Thank you to the Rebellion Publishing and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this book. I really enjoyed this collection of of tales about Black Beth, the warrior maiden. Great adventure and beautiful, detailed illustrations made this a very enjoyable read.

Black Beth was a one-time character published by Scream in the 1980s. She was a combination of Red Sonja and The Punisher, an armor-clad woman warrior who sought vengeance against the tyrants that slaughtered her love and her village. Aided by her mentor, the blind wild man Quido, she sought vengeance for 23 pages before disappearing into the memories of comic aficionados until 2016, when Rebellion purchased the rights from the original publisher. Alec Worley and artist DaNi have reinvented Black Beth for modern audiences in a dark fantasy tale that is sure to thrill readers.

The original Black Beth, written by Blas Gallego and drawn by an unknown artist, is presented in the first half of this book. It’s a dated story, to be sure, but a thrilling tale of revenge. Beth begins her journey with the line “My hatred will sustain me. All gentleness has been burned from my soul!” and trains to defeat the evil Count Wolfgang Rassau. Ultimately, Rassau meets his doom in the original tale, and readers are left eager for more of Black Beth’s adventures.

The next tale, “The Magos of Malice,” features Black Beth battling an army of undead skeletons while an evil warlock tries to sacrifice children. “The Witch Tree” is another short tale in black and white that features Black Beth renewing her vow for vengeance while remembering the death of her mother. Both tales are short, and very much in the same storyline as the original. They are dark fantasy, full of blood sacrifice and violent sword fights, but clever tales for what they are. Alec Worley has done his best to both modernize the Black Beth tale, but keep it in the same vein as the original.

The highlight of the collection is “Black Beth and the Devils of Al-Kadesh,” a full-color masterpiece. Black Beth is pitted against tritons, spiky underwater carrion-eating demons, and giant flying reptiles while trying to save good people from evil. It’s a tale that will remind readers of some of the more adventurous mythologies and fantasy tales with a dated style that very much plays to the story’s strengths.

Overall, Black Beth: Vengeance be Thy Name is a great graphic collection of tales. Starting with the historical beginnings of the titular character and moving through four new tales, this collection is sure to renew interest in what was a lost and all-but forgotten heroine of fantasy. It’s a solid collection, and Alec Worley and DaNi should be championed for breathing new life into this character. Fans of dark, epic fantasy will surely love this book.