Originally Posted on Rivalcast Media
Back on December 16, 2009, the last issues of the World of Warcraft: The Comic
was published. At the time, it was supposed to mark a change in the
comic. Rather than being one comic, it would be two comics. World of Warcraft: The Alliance comic and World of Warcraft The Horde,
both as an ongoing series. Jump forward a few months and both the
Alliance comic and the Horde comic were canceled as ongoing series, but
we are given the promise they were now going to be graphic novels. Then
the waiting started. I can't image many were waiting too long, since in
the time it took Blizzard and DC comics to get their act together to
publish this comic, they published Ashbringer, Curse of the Worgen, and Pearl of Pandaria.
If
you are a long time follower of this blog, you might remember back
2010 when I broke the story that these books were still in production,
since Jheremy Raapack, the artist, was talking about the Horde book on
this blog.
However, it wasn't until the San Diego Comic Con 2011 that we got
official word that both the Alliance and Horde comics were still, in
fact, in the works and the had been renamed Dark riders and Bloodsworn,
respectively.Then back in February when I talked to Mickey Nelson he said they were still doing the art on Dark riders. So, knowing all that on May 7, 2013 we finally get to see the story of some
of the character that were introduced almost three and half years ago. Lets take a look.
World of Warcraft: Dark riders
Writer: Mike Costa
Artist: Neil Googe
Colorist: Perre Matterne, Lee Loughride & Len O'Grady
Letterer: Wes Abbott
Story Consultants: Chris Metzen, Alex Afrasiabi, Luis Barriga & Micky Neilson
Cover: Alex Horley & Samwise Didier
Publisher: DC Entertainment
Cover Price: $24.99
Opening of the Story
This
review will be non-spoiler, a full spoiler review will be done on Grand Old Podcast Episode 97, to give everyone a few weeks to read it. Set
before the Cataclysm, our story begins when a young warrior named
Mardigan enters the Lion’s Pride inn to meet with an Alchemist, an
errand he has done many times before. Before they can finish their
transaction, another man interrupts them,and our young warrior can't
help but pick a fight. Marshal Dughan breaks up the fight and takes
Mardigan before his father Karlain, to inform them about the fight and
if it happens again the Marshal can't protect him.
It
should be noted before I go on, that in Tides of War we find out who
are current members of the Counsel of Six, the leaders of the Kirin Tor.
Karlain is named as one of them. This book shows why Karlain might have
been chosen for such a high position.
There
is clear strife between Karlain and Mardigan dating back to the death
of Mardigan’s mother. Rather than settle what seems to be an old fight,
Karlain simply tells Mardigan to get the materials he was supposed to
get on the first trip, while he took care of other business.
A little bit more:
To
keep this as spoiler free is possible, I'll say the rest of the book
involves the conflict between Karlain and Mardigan, the Dark riders and
their search for rare artifacts. Revil Kost,the priest with a score to
settle, and Brink, the gnome rogue and member of SI: 7 who has his own
plans for the relics. Of course we finally find out the missing part of
the story about the Scythe of Elune.
There are also some nice bits in Westfall and with the Night watch of
Dustwood, which remind you of how much and how little things have
changed with the Cataclysm in World of Warcraft.
The Art:
There
is no way getting around this. The art in this issue is highly
inconsistent. I'm not sure what to chalk this up too. The long
development of the book, changing ideas of characters or to much input. I
would love to know more about the development story behind this book,
but for now we can only guess. The art of Elwynn Forest is lovingly done
with detail on every aspect of the area. In fact, the art is done is
such a style as to almost be distracting, because of its plastic look.
However, this quickly falls away as we start seeing less and less
detail, backgrounds become ovals and squares with few other details. If I
had to guess this is based on the fact this comic was originally meant
to be a monthly comic and was pained for Januray of 2010 before it was
cancelled and changed to graphic novel. I would guess most of the Elwynn
Forest art would have comprised the first issue. However that is just a
guess on my part based on early art that released.
The
other issue is lines drawn on the face of character don't equal
emotion. I mean Mr. Googe goes crazy throughout this issue just covering
faces with meaningless lines. I think he was trying to convey darkness,
but all he really does is make his characters look stupid. The
character that suffers the most for this is Karlain, who just looks
stupid for much of the comic. (put in picture of his casting face) It’s
hard not to compare the Karlain in Beginnings and Ends
and not feel a bit disappointed to say nothing of covers not reflecting
the insider art at all. Granted this has been a common theme of the
Warcraft Comics
All that said the Dark riders are effectively realized but over all the art just left we wanting.
Overall thoughts
I'm
a huge fan of the Warcraft: Legends anthology series, not because it
has such big stories but because often the stories are small and feel
like they are on the player character level of storytelling. Much of
this tale feels like it could be a group of players out on a quest in
Eastern Kingdoms. In terms of scale, I would put it somewhere between
the manga story Warrior: United by
Grace Randolph and Ashbringer by Micky Neilson. Its a big multi part
adventure, but as far as overall impact on the Warcraft Universe, its
minimal. We get to find out backstory about the Dark riders, and missing
history of the Scythe of Elune, but other than that, this book can be
passed on without fearing of missing some major story beats. It fact,I
would say that is the book’s greatest asset and its weakness. Its loyal
to small details of Azeroth, as a player might find them in game. But at
the same time when you come out of this story you come out with a much
smaller story than we as readers have gotten use to from the Warcraft
graphic novels.
I would rate this 3 of 5 Doomhammers
Sayomara
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