Also called “the fairest one of all” by the magic mirror, Verona is banished by the queen.

The royal family’s lives are richly described, with the inclusion of a new character: trusted lady-in-waiting Verona. They appear throughout the story, continually weaving their evil magic into the queen’s life and encouraging her to do horrible deeds. The queen discovers that three witchy sisters-the king’s cousins-brokered this supernatural deal. He bargained away his soul to give the beautiful wife he cherished the child she longed for and was devastated when she died in childbirth. The bitter man never showed his daughter any love, frequently telling her she was ugly. How does she develop into a murderous monster? Valentino constructs an emotionally complex story that investigates the queen’s origins as the daughter of a cruel mirror maker. The evil stepmother in this retelling of “Snow White” starts life as a commoner who marries the king and becomes a loving mother to his little girl. This tragic tale of love and loss is the untold story of the Wicked Queen, a woman who just wanted to be the fairest of all.

Could the Queen simply have been born that cruel? Or does it have to do with a mysterious mirror, gifted to her upon her wedding and swirling with dark magic?Īnd who is the man in the mirror? Is he the reason for the Queen’s downfall? Perhaps she resented the girl for her beauty. The tale of the young princess, Snow White, and her evil stepmother, the Wicked Queen, is widely known-the Queen was jealous of the girl’s beauty, and this jealousy culminated in the Queen’s attempt on the sweet, naive girl’s life.īut what caused the Queen to become so, well, wicked? Perhaps the Queen hated her stepdaughter for her resemblance to the King’s first wife. Disney’s New York Times best-selling Villains series comes to life in this graphic novel adaptation of the book that started it all in this tragic tale of love and loss, the untold story of Snow White’s Wicked Queen.

Fairest of All by Serena Valentino