I have an admission to make, I am not a hardcore fan of World of Warcraft, please don’t form a gang and beat me up. I have played WoW and enjoyed the experience but I feel the need to distance myself from those who lose sleep over it. It’s not that I’m above such loss of sleep it’s just that I save my insomnia for other games. I am free from that additional baggage and write this review purely as a fan of comics without any bias in favour of the game.

The artwork is of a high standard especially with its use of vibrant colours which are easy on the eye. The artists do a fine job of transferring the world from videogame to comic and, given that this can be an area of concern with any adaptation, this will help in keeping the fans satisfied.

The story is standard fantasy fair with familiar characters, a man on a quest to discover a hidden past, a guilt-ridden second man with anger management issues, and a young girl just trying to carve out a place for herself. The story flows well for the most part but I do take issue with how incredibly short some of the battles are. A perfect example of this is when the young elf elf rushes into battle and the narrative suddenly cuts away to coinciding events only to return with the girl leaving the scene and an onlooker claiming that she fought well. If Jack Bauer, in an episode of 24, approaches a terrorist HQ with a battle-ready stare on his trademark sullen face and the next we see of him he’s rubbing his hands in glee, millions of viewers would feel cheated.

This graphic novel is of a reasonable length but I suspect that the writers would have welcomed an opportunity to spend more time on each of the characters as it appears that behind each there are multiple tales which simply couldn’t be explored in this volume. Broll Bearmantle, the night elf who bears (no pun intended) more than a little resemblance to the description of Beorn in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, is an interesting character who could quite easily fill an entire volume all by himself.

Speaking of Tolkien, the writers do a good job of distancing themselves from his work even though they are fighting the same uphill battle which every subsequent author of fantasy must face. It could be argued that without Tolkien there may be no Dungeons and Dragons and without that we may not have World of Warcraft and that would be a shame as this graphic novel is a worthy if underdeveloped addition to the fantasy genre.

7/10

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