Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Dungeons And Dragons #1
IDW Comics
Greenwood, Ferguson, Buscema & O'Grady
Comics are all about expectations. I have never played Dungeons and Dragons, nor have I read the novels or comics. I recall a cartoon series in the 1980s but that's about it. I jumped into this title thinking swords, sorcery, demons, animals and, well, dragons and maybe even a dungeon. What I came away with was something that contained almost none of those elements and I walked away very disappointed. If this is how the game is or the novels are and you are familiar with them then you may be pleased with this book. I am not familiar with either and can't see myself returning for a second issue unfortunately.
The oddity about how much I disliked this comic is that it has little to do with the writing or the artwork. It's just that the pacing and the story missed from what I was expecting. It's not even that it's a bad plot, it's just that wanted to see more battles or fire breathing or something exciting.
This book is about two characters from the dock ward, Torn and Steeleye. They are basically nobodies looking for adventure by way of scams. They find themselves dropped into the middle of a plot to kidnap Lady Talandra. The plot has many layers of deception and quite a few players involved and the duo are totally overwhelmed and fully involved by the end of the book.
The plot is actually quite clever. The script dishes out little tidbits of deception every couple of pages that managed to surprise me quite a few times. I actually enjoyed the banter and I found the dialogue to reveal quite a bit about the characters throughout the book with very little caption boxes.
The artwork is good. We have a good setup of the town and the main characters all have a level of uniqueness to them. I will say that I found it a little difficult to tell which side some of the generic guards were on but in some cases that was part of the plot deception, but I'm not sure that was supposed to be case throughout the entire book, especially with the Lords.
I wish I could say if this book lives up to the game and/or novels but I don't know if it does or not. What I can tell you is this book is more of a caper than a sword and sorcery book. They aren't even really chasing an object as much as a person and general adventure. Perhaps there will be magic, dragons and swords down the road but this book is a suspenseful mystery and it was not was I was looking for sadly.
2 out of 5 Geek Goggles
