First Look at World of Warcraft Comic

The MTV Multiplayer blog has a first look at the World of Warcraft comic book slated to start its run next month. Set to be published by the Wildstorm imprint, and written by "Thor" and "Orion" veteran Walter Simonson, the comic will focus on the exploits of an amnesiac human washed up on the shores of the continent of Kalimdor. "Simonson said the comic will be 'very much tied to the lore and to the Warcraft history.' 'If you're a longtime player, I think the comic is a revelation about some of the mysteries,' he explained. 'There are mysteries from the past that have never been totally addressed within the game, or at least we're able to address them in the comic in a way that the game hasn't been able to.' He also said that he tried to write the comic so that it appeases Warcraft fans as well as newcomers." For a taste of the art from the first issue (done by Ludo Lullabi and inker Sandra Hope), the site has the first five pages available for viewing.

Comments

First

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have to read the same pages over and over again to get to the end page?

LFG

[PJ1216]

If you want a comic based in the World of Warcraft world (well, ok, loosely based in the WoW world), I suggest http://www.lfgcomic.com/. Its a humorous comic called Looking For Group. Its pretty damn good. It gets its characters from WoW more than it does the world or plotline. I suggest reading it from the beginning, the story arcs are pretty damn good.

True to the game? Hardly

[SmallFurryCreature]

If it was true, then a newbie washed up in that area would indeed be chow. Furthermore there are no specfic areas to target, you cannot take out an eye, just pummel away. Fancy combat skills? Again no, just the same basic attack over and over and hope their health bar goes down faster then your own. A horde helping out an allience? Fighting effectivly with items way below your level? No no.

Will he get ganked in later chapters? Have to que to kill a boss, wait hours for a spawn? Will there be a love interest? A plot? Interaction with other characters? Will half the people he meet be bunnyhopping around the place? Will there be gold spammers?

Frankly it reminds me a bit off various other US comics, who in general are far too busy being comics to really bother with the original subject. Maybe it will get better, but frankly I see "shameless cash-in" so far.

Re:True to the game? Hardly

[MWoody]

Hrm, while I generally don't mind some WoW bashing, I don't like seeing anyone take bashing they don't deserve. Much of what you mention doesn't apply to World of Warcraft at all.

  - No special attacks? Of course there are special attacks. Anyone who just autoswings their way through life will fail to kill mobs as early as level 5.
  - Horde helping out alliance? Yeah, it happens pretty frequently. Less so on pvp servers, but it still occurs. Not sure why this is a minus, anyway; war is in the name, after all.
  - Fight effectively with items way below your level - of course you can, I do it all the time while I level; not sure what this is referring to at all.
  - Ganked in later chapters? Well duh, if you're on a pvp server, pvp happens. Don't like it? Try pve.
  - Queue to kill a boss? Since when? Maybe if he's a quest spawn, I guess, but even the nastiest respawn timers for quest mobs are in the range of 1-2 minutes.
  - Wait hours for a spawn? What spawn? Certainly no quest mobs, and boss mobs are instanced.
  - Interaction with other characters? All the time. It's required for endgame content, after all. Although if you meant non-player characters... no, interact with those a lot, too.
  - If people are bunnyhopping, your connection blows.
  - Gold spammers? Nope, they've pretty much fixed that entirely. Haven't gotten a spam in months.

What's also funny is that you seem bothered by the perceived lack of plot, yet you're unhappy with a comic that adds story to the universe.

If you're going to bash WoW, there's plenty to bash; it's far from a perfect experience. But if you've never played it, as I suspect you haven't, I'd suggest you at least research your derision.

On a side note, this isn't the first comic they've released for WoW; there was an AWFUL, AWFUL, MY GOD IT HURTS manga-style comic released a while back.

Comic Farming

[User 956]

Do you have to read the same pages over and over again to get to the end page?

Actually, you can pay some guy in china to have his team of players read it for you.

Re:more "horde cool" badass wannabeeness ?

[shinma]

That would be valid if, indeed, World of Warcraft was 5000 year old celtic mythology.

It's not. It's barely decades old Warhammer mythology repackaged to avoid licensing issues. ;P

It is perfectly valid to use somewhat recognizable archetypes in new ways without "nullifying" a different take. Look at vampires, for instance. What you would likely consider the "archetypal" vampire is only a construct of the 19th century that "nullifies" myths that have existed in every known human culture. The seductive undead nobility of Carmilla and Dracula have nothing to do with the mindless revenants that existed before Le Fanu got his hand on the creatures, and yet they have every bit as much of a place in the world's fiction and literature as the Vrykolakas, the Strigoi or the Penangallan.

If you can't look at the Warcraft universe in its own context, rather than intertextualizing your own preconceptions, that's not really Blizzard's problem, it's yours.