Tolkien´s heritage (issues # 1 to 7)
Introduction- I´m not a fan of games. I´ve never played World of Warcraft before. The first time I´d heard about it, I was playing RPG with some friends and one of them was concentrated in front of a cpu and as I aproached the monitor, he showed me this universe of RPG characters: orcs, elves, trolls etc. It was cool seeing the game but, since I´m not a videogame fan, I didn´t put much thought in it. This was in 2000. Ten yeas has passed and World of Warcraft has become one of the greatest games ever, which claimed atention from other medias, hence the comic book series. (p.s: I´m not going to say anything about the story of the game, whoever wants to know more just go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft )
The Story (and why it rocks!) - What´s any good RPG story has? A dwarf, a human warrior, an elf, a wizard and a thieve, all gathering around for a big adventure. WOW isn´t any different and it´s very loyall to the structure of this kind of stories (RPG). The difference (and stroke of genious) is that Walter Simonson figured an excellent way to tell this story (in a Gladiator kind of way): a man is seriously injured and has no memoy at all, so he´s made a prisioner of a might orc named Rehgar (who was once a gladiator himself) and together with a Night Elf (Broll Bearmantle) and a Blood Elf (Valeera Sanguinar) have to fight in the big championship in Dire Maul. The great idea is to put antagonical characters to work together and see how they evolve, and the outcome is rewarding and beautiful. To see Lo´gosh and the elves fighting together against orcs, trolls, taurens, demons, cyclops and ogres is awesome (specially the final fight in issue # 2). Simonson´s credit is also for making constant references and keeping it as true to the game´s world as he could (there are plenty of names and historic date references from the WOW that seems to be very acurate). Other great thing of this comic book is the fact that issue from issue the three main characters get to know each other very well, becoming a perfect trio and interacting easily, like they have known each other forever (this character evolution is a strong feat for this comic), what´s really cool and fun, since they are completely different from each other (for instance, Valeera/the blood elf is an enemy of the humans and Night Elves, since her race is allied with the Burning Legion). That connection between the characters is a common thread for all the issues, growing particularly after issue # 3, when Valeera is separated from the group and instead of running away, she goes in a search for her friends. Since our heroes are free from the work of gladiators, the next issues (#s 3 to 7) focuses more in Broll saving his tribe and Lo´Gosh trying to recover his memories, and all that with lots of battles (the orcs against the Night Elves in issue # 4 and the group against the Nagas in issue # 7 are awesome).Other great feat from this book is the magnificent, bright, awesome and lush art of Ludo Lullabi, who can make this world of fantasy very easy to the eyes.
Overall - With you are interested in a good old story about Tolkien´s literature, being or not a fan of the game, World of Warcraft is the book for you, with adventure, action, amazing scenarios, great plot and narrative, briliant characterizations of the heroes and villains by Simonson, a very interesting comic book to collect.
5 out 5
The Story (and why it rocks!) - What´s any good RPG story has? A dwarf, a human warrior, an elf, a wizard and a thieve, all gathering around for a big adventure. WOW isn´t any different and it´s very loyall to the structure of this kind of stories (RPG). The difference (and stroke of genious) is that Walter Simonson figured an excellent way to tell this story (in a Gladiator kind of way): a man is seriously injured and has no memoy at all, so he´s made a prisioner of a might orc named Rehgar (who was once a gladiator himself) and together with a Night Elf (Broll Bearmantle) and a Blood Elf (Valeera Sanguinar) have to fight in the big championship in Dire Maul. The great idea is to put antagonical characters to work together and see how they evolve, and the outcome is rewarding and beautiful. To see Lo´gosh and the elves fighting together against orcs, trolls, taurens, demons, cyclops and ogres is awesome (specially the final fight in issue # 2). Simonson´s credit is also for making constant references and keeping it as true to the game´s world as he could (there are plenty of names and historic date references from the WOW that seems to be very acurate). Other great thing of this comic book is the fact that issue from issue the three main characters get to know each other very well, becoming a perfect trio and interacting easily, like they have known each other forever (this character evolution is a strong feat for this comic), what´s really cool and fun, since they are completely different from each other (for instance, Valeera/the blood elf is an enemy of the humans and Night Elves, since her race is allied with the Burning Legion). That connection between the characters is a common thread for all the issues, growing particularly after issue # 3, when Valeera is separated from the group and instead of running away, she goes in a search for her friends. Since our heroes are free from the work of gladiators, the next issues (#s 3 to 7) focuses more in Broll saving his tribe and Lo´Gosh trying to recover his memories, and all that with lots of battles (the orcs against the Night Elves in issue # 4 and the group against the Nagas in issue # 7 are awesome).Other great feat from this book is the magnificent, bright, awesome and lush art of Ludo Lullabi, who can make this world of fantasy very easy to the eyes.
Overall - With you are interested in a good old story about Tolkien´s literature, being or not a fan of the game, World of Warcraft is the book for you, with adventure, action, amazing scenarios, great plot and narrative, briliant characterizations of the heroes and villains by Simonson, a very interesting comic book to collect.
5 out 5