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When their children are abducted, three former warriors must abandon their post-war lives in order to once again pick up their weapons for the sake of saving them. While seeking their children, they learn about the secret lives those children have been living, and about how each of them have changed since their time in the war.

The White Trees is a mature examination of various high fantasy tropes seen often throughout fiction. Fortunately, despite hitting on a lot of these notes, it still manages to feel very fresh thanks to how the creative team of writer Chip Zdarsky and artists Kris Anka and Matt Wilson are handling the material. I don’t think this story (which will only be a two-parter, with the second and final issue hitting next month) is bound for a happy ending, but I’m quite enjoying the world these folks have built so far, and I hope that – even without these specific characters – it gets explored some more in the future.

-Carrie Wood