Monday, April 27, 2009

Warlord #1


I have a lot of exposure to the sword and sorcery genre through books, movies, TV, and games, so it takes a special type of comic to make me want to follow it in that format. Mike Grell's new Warlord series has a lot of things going for it, but I'm not sure I'm going to be sticking around. The first half of the book feels like an action movie, with the required character types showing up and the normal plot points being hit. "The guide is dead, what now!?!" That said, I'm still very intrigued, especially if the villains alluded to at the conclusion of the book are the new characters from the first half. I'd love to see those protagonist-y type characters end up as the bad guys. Warlord himself is pretty cool, but I'm not sure of the relationships amongst his supporting cast. Is Warlord a king? Is that cat-lady his girlfriend, or is he with that queen? I did enjoy how quickly Warlord sprang into action against the griffon, but I was sad to see it die, I hope they aren't rare in Skataris. The very opening sequence with Warlord crashing in the lost world was well done too.

The art is pretty neat throughout. Obvously, Mike Grell knows what he's doing with this character, although this is my first time seeing his take on him. I do feel a bit like I'm staring behind, this wasn't totally new reader friendly, but I'm catching up. I'm on the fence for future issues, but this was decent.

Fair

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