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Elfquest #6
Elfquest Graphic Novel 6: The Secret of Two-Edge
Within the corridors of Blue Mountain, Winnowill has hatched her most ambitious plan ever - to take her people away from the World of Two Moons and back to the stars.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
4 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
About the author
Richard Pini
531 books155 followersRichard Pini is one-half of a husband and wife team with Wendy Pini that created, most notably, the Elfquest series.
He was raised in Orange, Connecticut with his three siblings. Richard began writing science fiction stories early in his childhood.
In 1972, Richard and Wendy were married after a courtship of four years. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973 with a degree in Astrophysics. He worked at the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Science in Boston until 1975 and Taunton High School until 1979 when he began his career at IBM.
In 1977, Richard and Wendy established a publishing company called Warp Graphics to publish their first Elfquest comic. Richard is credited as co-writer and editor on Elfquest, as well as handling all of the publishing and business aspects of Warp Graphics.
Elfquest was self-published for 25 years and in 2003, licensed to DC Comics. The comic series has won several awards, including the Ed Aprill Award for Best Independent Comic, two Alley Awards, the Fantasy Festival Comic Book Awards for Best Alternative Comic, and the Golden Pen Award.
Richard has also contributed writing for Worldpool, Futurequest, Rogue's Curse, and two Windkin stories.
He has received the Small Press Writers and Artists Organization Award for Best Editor, the San Diego Comic Convention Inkpot Award, and the New York State Jaycees Distinguished Service Award.
Richard and his wife currently reside in Poughkeepsie, New York.
He was raised in Orange, Connecticut with his three siblings. Richard began writing science fiction stories early in his childhood.
In 1972, Richard and Wendy were married after a courtship of four years. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973 with a degree in Astrophysics. He worked at the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Science in Boston until 1975 and Taunton High School until 1979 when he began his career at IBM.
In 1977, Richard and Wendy established a publishing company called Warp Graphics to publish their first Elfquest comic. Richard is credited as co-writer and editor on Elfquest, as well as handling all of the publishing and business aspects of Warp Graphics.
Elfquest was self-published for 25 years and in 2003, licensed to DC Comics. The comic series has won several awards, including the Ed Aprill Award for Best Independent Comic, two Alley Awards, the Fantasy Festival Comic Book Awards for Best Alternative Comic, and the Golden Pen Award.
Richard has also contributed writing for Worldpool, Futurequest, Rogue's Curse, and two Windkin stories.
He has received the Small Press Writers and Artists Organization Award for Best Editor, the San Diego Comic Convention Inkpot Award, and the New York State Jaycees Distinguished Service Award.
Richard and his wife currently reside in Poughkeepsie, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
November 5, 2018
Still continuing my quest to complete the first eight volumes of the collected Elfquest, plus a bit of accessory material….obviously this is my little disclaimer. Go back to the beginning if you have wandered here in curiousity or error somehow. You MUST start at the beginning, this is no place for the uninitiated. I don’t care if you found this volume in a stack of your Dad’s old porn mags or at a garage sale or what. Put it down and find a way to get yourself a copy of the preceding books. Do it. Now.
Boox Six is titled “The Secret of Two-Edge,” but the half-elf, half-dwarf anti-hero plays only a peripheral role in the HUGE events of the saga in this volume. Yes, his madness is revealed for what it is, but it’s hardly a shocker given what has come before. His fate is to be a catalyst, which is what he been to the Elfquest universe all along. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
“The Secret of Two-Edge” concludes the two-volume sequel to the first quest. The siege at Blue Mountain comes to a violent and fitful end as Winnowill and her machinations are finally revealed in all of their sinister glory. In truth, this book should have been titled “The Secret of Winnowill,” as our favorite Evil Queen is unmasked completely as the story progresses. Cutter and several of his band have managed to invade Blue Mountain just as Winnowill threatens to bring the entire outpost down around them in a cacophony of falling rock and scattered lives. Leetah, her son Suntop, and the now super-powered Rayek also manage to enter the fray in an attempt to “heal” the mental wounds that drive Winnowill forward in her desire to commit Elven genocide and escape the world of Two Moons. There can be no more secrets now as the battle comes to its ultimate conclusion.
There is still this great sense that Wendy Pini picked apart Michael Moorcock’s “Elric of Melnibone” series for a good chunk of the inspirational bones of this project. The dark, eldritch beauty of the Blue Mountain and its amoral and evil inhabitants reminds me of nothing so much as Moorcock’s vision of the latter days of the decline and destruction of Imrryr, The Dreaming City at the center of the Melnibonean empire. Derivative or not, this similarity to the Elric mythos gives these two volumes of Elfquest a sort of shimmering and slightly glamorous sense of darkness and corruption. We are way past the the events of the first Quest, when the characters still had a wide-eyed sense of innocence and optimism. There is far less humor or playfulness in these pages. Even the scenes of Elven frolic at the end of the story are drawn in muted, dusky tones.
And maybe that’s good. Brightness and light and a happy ending were fine for the original Quest. This story is more about finding out what evils lurk beneath the surface of the world. It’s a more grown-up Elfquest here, one that doesn’t shy away from the hideous motivations of a dank character like Winnowill, whose desire to bend the Gliders to her perverse intentions proves to be the ultimate in betrayals. This is intense storytelling, and I’ll give the Pinis credit for taking the story in a direction that I really didn’t see coming after the end of the initial 20-issue run.
The art is beautiful, the colors rich and vibrant. Wendy Pini manages to bring out a lot of emotion and drama though her character drawings, The backgrounds are full of detail, and it’s worth taking a long look at each panel to get the full sense of what’s happening in the story. I like the fact that the Pini elves continue to grow and develop like real, living….well, elves, I guess. Lessons are learned, lives are lost, and an entire Elven culture is brought down in a cascade of rock and ruin that lays waste to both alien and human continuities.
Overall, I loved the book, but I still get a sense that the initial Quest and the main ideas behind it have been lost a bit in these pages. That sense of a search for home…..a search for place….has been subjected to a bit of revisionist history. I don’t get a sense that the Pini elves can ever really go home. There has been too much lost in the transition from the High Ones to those who came “after.” Too much time has passed, too much blood has been diluted through the passing of generations and the melding of the Wolfriders to the world of the Two Moons. The story has lost a bit of its initial sense of wonder and fun in exchange for a more robust and complex style of storytelling and plotting. We are moving into epic fantasy territory now, kids. Don’t let the big eyes and delicate physical frames fool you, this is some heavy shit we’re dealing with.
Volume Six concludes with all of the cover art for the original comic book releases as well as an 8-page stand alone story featuring the Preservers that was published in 1980 in a Marvel Comics teaser magazine titled “Epic Illustrated,” which was a short-lived attempt to reach a more mature segment of the comic and graphic novel audience.
So onward I shall go. I have two more collected volumes and a couple of Compendiums and at least one peripheral story yet to go to complete my personal Elf Quest. It’s been fun thus far spending time with Cutter and Winnowill and the rest of the gang, even though I now want to go and spend a little more time with The Albino Price and his doomed City again as well……..
Boox Six is titled “The Secret of Two-Edge,” but the half-elf, half-dwarf anti-hero plays only a peripheral role in the HUGE events of the saga in this volume. Yes, his madness is revealed for what it is, but it’s hardly a shocker given what has come before. His fate is to be a catalyst, which is what he been to the Elfquest universe all along. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
“The Secret of Two-Edge” concludes the two-volume sequel to the first quest. The siege at Blue Mountain comes to a violent and fitful end as Winnowill and her machinations are finally revealed in all of their sinister glory. In truth, this book should have been titled “The Secret of Winnowill,” as our favorite Evil Queen is unmasked completely as the story progresses. Cutter and several of his band have managed to invade Blue Mountain just as Winnowill threatens to bring the entire outpost down around them in a cacophony of falling rock and scattered lives. Leetah, her son Suntop, and the now super-powered Rayek also manage to enter the fray in an attempt to “heal” the mental wounds that drive Winnowill forward in her desire to commit Elven genocide and escape the world of Two Moons. There can be no more secrets now as the battle comes to its ultimate conclusion.
There is still this great sense that Wendy Pini picked apart Michael Moorcock’s “Elric of Melnibone” series for a good chunk of the inspirational bones of this project. The dark, eldritch beauty of the Blue Mountain and its amoral and evil inhabitants reminds me of nothing so much as Moorcock’s vision of the latter days of the decline and destruction of Imrryr, The Dreaming City at the center of the Melnibonean empire. Derivative or not, this similarity to the Elric mythos gives these two volumes of Elfquest a sort of shimmering and slightly glamorous sense of darkness and corruption. We are way past the the events of the first Quest, when the characters still had a wide-eyed sense of innocence and optimism. There is far less humor or playfulness in these pages. Even the scenes of Elven frolic at the end of the story are drawn in muted, dusky tones.
And maybe that’s good. Brightness and light and a happy ending were fine for the original Quest. This story is more about finding out what evils lurk beneath the surface of the world. It’s a more grown-up Elfquest here, one that doesn’t shy away from the hideous motivations of a dank character like Winnowill, whose desire to bend the Gliders to her perverse intentions proves to be the ultimate in betrayals. This is intense storytelling, and I’ll give the Pinis credit for taking the story in a direction that I really didn’t see coming after the end of the initial 20-issue run.
The art is beautiful, the colors rich and vibrant. Wendy Pini manages to bring out a lot of emotion and drama though her character drawings, The backgrounds are full of detail, and it’s worth taking a long look at each panel to get the full sense of what’s happening in the story. I like the fact that the Pini elves continue to grow and develop like real, living….well, elves, I guess. Lessons are learned, lives are lost, and an entire Elven culture is brought down in a cascade of rock and ruin that lays waste to both alien and human continuities.
Overall, I loved the book, but I still get a sense that the initial Quest and the main ideas behind it have been lost a bit in these pages. That sense of a search for home…..a search for place….has been subjected to a bit of revisionist history. I don’t get a sense that the Pini elves can ever really go home. There has been too much lost in the transition from the High Ones to those who came “after.” Too much time has passed, too much blood has been diluted through the passing of generations and the melding of the Wolfriders to the world of the Two Moons. The story has lost a bit of its initial sense of wonder and fun in exchange for a more robust and complex style of storytelling and plotting. We are moving into epic fantasy territory now, kids. Don’t let the big eyes and delicate physical frames fool you, this is some heavy shit we’re dealing with.
Volume Six concludes with all of the cover art for the original comic book releases as well as an 8-page stand alone story featuring the Preservers that was published in 1980 in a Marvel Comics teaser magazine titled “Epic Illustrated,” which was a short-lived attempt to reach a more mature segment of the comic and graphic novel audience.
So onward I shall go. I have two more collected volumes and a couple of Compendiums and at least one peripheral story yet to go to complete my personal Elf Quest. It’s been fun thus far spending time with Cutter and Winnowill and the rest of the gang, even though I now want to go and spend a little more time with The Albino Price and his doomed City again as well……..
October 27, 2014
After the dip the series took in book five, the Pinis make a strong showing in book six. The art is graceful and emotive, the plot filled with suspense, and several characters get wonderfully developed, including Adar, the human man who's a dead ringer for Richard Pini.
The story hinges on whether people can ever move on, or whether they're permanently trapped by their past: the humans whose gods have betrayed them, Clearbrook mourning her lifemate, Strongbow trying desperately to hold on to the Way, Rayek wishing for a way to fix the mistakes of the First Ones, Winnowill warped by choices she made long ago, and Two-Edge fighting to overcome the trauma of his childhood. And what's great about the writing is that there isn't a clear answer for any of them because life is messier than that. The story is complex and thought-provoking and very worth rereading.
The story hinges on whether people can ever move on, or whether they're permanently trapped by their past: the humans whose gods have betrayed them, Clearbrook mourning her lifemate, Strongbow trying desperately to hold on to the Way, Rayek wishing for a way to fix the mistakes of the First Ones, Winnowill warped by choices she made long ago, and Two-Edge fighting to overcome the trauma of his childhood. And what's great about the writing is that there isn't a clear answer for any of them because life is messier than that. The story is complex and thought-provoking and very worth rereading.
February 14, 2016
Fantastic blend of fantasy and comics. Incredible characters and story line. Highly recommended
January 9, 2024
ElfQuest is a beautiful exploration of people and culture in a fantasy world that started back in the 1970's and still runs to this day. On this world humans are still very much in their barbaric cavemen days while elves are the fierce hunters but also fun loving children of the forest who just want to be left alone. We meet Cutter and his clan of Wolf Riders just as they're escaping a deadly clash with the humans of their area that results in them burning down the whole forest and its through these elves' eyes that we get to explore this lush world and storytelling.
Back when I was introduced to this world in middle school by my cousin, I was immediately taken with the stunning artwork and the way these characters were portrayed. The Wolf Riders and the other elves in the story are very obviously part of the same race, but show a wide variety in every aspect of their design depending on where in the world they settled (much like actual humans in our world). From the beginning we have a large handful of characters to keep track of, elf, troll and human alike, and yet it never felt like a struggle to keep track of them because of their design and how their names just fit them so well...
Read my review on the full series at Well, Are They? A Queer Review blog
https://wellarethey.blogspot.com/2022...
Back when I was introduced to this world in middle school by my cousin, I was immediately taken with the stunning artwork and the way these characters were portrayed. The Wolf Riders and the other elves in the story are very obviously part of the same race, but show a wide variety in every aspect of their design depending on where in the world they settled (much like actual humans in our world). From the beginning we have a large handful of characters to keep track of, elf, troll and human alike, and yet it never felt like a struggle to keep track of them because of their design and how their names just fit them so well...
Read my review on the full series at Well, Are They? A Queer Review blog
https://wellarethey.blogspot.com/2022...
August 15, 2023
Wow. This one starts at what feels like the climax and then keeps ramping up.
Continuing off of the previous volume. The Wolfriders come to Blue Mountain from multiple angles and encounter different pitfalls. Rayek joins the fight, believing he can connect with Winnowill in a way that others can't. Winnowill's ultimate plan is revealed.
The title is a misnomer. Sure we get a little more information about Two-Edge's origins, but this is almost entirely about Winnowill. My favorite thing about early Elfquest was the art, and the inking by Joe Staton gets downright sloppy at times, which hurts the story for me.
Continuing off of the previous volume. The Wolfriders come to Blue Mountain from multiple angles and encounter different pitfalls. Rayek joins the fight, believing he can connect with Winnowill in a way that others can't. Winnowill's ultimate plan is revealed.
The title is a misnomer. Sure we get a little more information about Two-Edge's origins, but this is almost entirely about Winnowill. My favorite thing about early Elfquest was the art, and the inking by Joe Staton gets downright sloppy at times, which hurts the story for me.
August 17, 2023
There is so much in here. So many characters, so much plot. And this felt so familiar. And there are still lines that I just plan remember. I often felt like our cats would go up to the back door and do their Strongbow imitation. And our first look at Dart as he gets close, he does kind of look like a thistle. Perhaps the art isn't quite us good as the earlier volume, perhaps the colors are a bit more garish. But there are also details that still came as a surprise.
September 30, 2019
Read this series over and over again as a young teen and absolutely LOVED it, I got completely lost in the universe. Re-reading these was such at trip down memory lane <3
April 9, 2020
Note to self: Read this online. Rgis is part 2 of Siege at Blue mountain (#5-8).
September 25, 2023
Two-Edge and Rayek are headed to the palace when they spot a bird rider. The rider is only Adoree and they join together to get to the palace to figure things out. Meanwhile the Wolfriders are trying to check on all their people. Winowill is using Tyldek’s recognition with Dewshine against her in order to gain a new rider. Dewshine won’t leave until she is able to get Windkin. Scouter and Clearbrooke are trying hard to find a way to rescue them. So much happens in this volume. The start has changed from one of discovery to one of change. The Wolfriders have discovered all the different tribes, now they need to find a way to co-exist.
November 19, 2015
The Secret of Two-Edge takes place shortly after the end of Siege at Blue Mountain. This being the last book that I have, but not the end of the ElfQuest, I was quite pleased with how this mini-series ends.
Once again, the artwork is wonderful and the storytelling is superb. But like Siege at Blue Mountain, the story is only four comics long and this time there aren't a lot of goodies at the end of the book. But, if you have read all the other books in this series, this one is a must pick up. The story moves along at a fast pace and is a lot of fun to read.
ElfQuest is an excellent Fantasy series that really shouldn't be missed.
I rated this book an 8½ out of 10.
Once again, the artwork is wonderful and the storytelling is superb. But like Siege at Blue Mountain, the story is only four comics long and this time there aren't a lot of goodies at the end of the book. But, if you have read all the other books in this series, this one is a must pick up. The story moves along at a fast pace and is a lot of fun to read.
ElfQuest is an excellent Fantasy series that really shouldn't be missed.
I rated this book an 8½ out of 10.
August 11, 2014
These are a series of graphic novels that I first read in my tweens and hold a special place in my childhood reading. I have since come back to them and re-read them several times, and for me, they continue to stand to the test of time. This series changed drastically in plot and voice after the eighth volume, and increasingly became more and more of the saccharine sweet fantasy fluff that I can't bear to read. The first eight volumes are literary treasures that I continue to cherish.
October 3, 2012
The struggle between the two natures of Two-Edge was a fascinating story. The revelation of how he came to be and why he was so torn between trolls and elves was just amazing. I love how the Pinis deal with psychological issues in their characters as well as how it effects not only family ties but the greater tribe of 'elf'.
February 4, 2008
Among the glum faces in the captive war party, Dart sees one whose smile he gently returns... ...For youth knows a brother of its own heart and hope - no matter what physical differences exist.
April 26, 2025
A personal favorite.
*********
Second review, 2025:
4 stars this time. Also? Rayek is (still) sn idiot.
*********
Second review, 2025:
4 stars this time. Also? Rayek is (still) sn idiot.
August 19, 2008
I enjoyed this series more in the beginning before they had assistants to help with the art work because it definitely suffered.
May 15, 2009
Read review for Book 1
January 11, 2010
This is the part where the story starts to feel too cluttered.
November 10, 2010
Towards the end the story started to get a little tangled, but I still loved it to pieces! And all the wonderful characters!
April 12, 2012
Everything after the original quest felt somewhat forced to me, but there is still enough development of the characters in this to keep me excited about it.
May 1, 2015
(I actually read the Norwegian translation of the individual comics, but adding those on here is a pain...)
April 4, 2017
Elfquest: The Secret of Two-Edge, sixth volume in the series, proved to be just as good as the other volumes in the series. My wife got me to read Elfquest many years ago. And Two-Edge has been a character I've been wanting to know the background about. I enjoyed this entertaining volume and I'm looking forward to reading the next, Elfquest: The Cry from Beyond.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews