WARCRAFT: THE SUNWELL TRILOGY, VOL. 2 (OF 3)
TOKYOPOP
WRITER: Richard A. Knaak
ARTIST: Jae-Hwan Kim
ISBN: 1-59532-713-4
192 pp., B&W, $9.99
This past March TOKYOPOP released the second volume of WARCRAFT: THE SUNWELL TRILOGY. Subtitled “Shadows of Ice,” the book is adapted from Blizzard Entertainment’s popular online player game universe, Warcraft. The creators of this adaptation are New York Times best-selling author Richard A. Knaak (who has written four Warcraft text novels) and manhwa (comics for Korean) artist, Jae-Hwan Kim.
The story began in the first volume on the war-ravaged world of Azeroth where we met, Kalecgoz, a young blue dragon pursued by hunters. Wounded, he transformed himself into a half-elf/half-human calling himself Kalec. Kalec met and received help from a human girl named Anveena Teague and her pet, a tiny flying serpent named Raac. Kalec and Teague end up on the run when undead human creatures called the Scourge attack her home. Kalec and Anveena eventually join a former knight, Jorad Mace, and another dragon, a female named Tyrygosa or Tyri, who can also transform into a human-like form. Tyri flies Kalec, Anveena (with Raac in tow), and Jorad into the winter lands of Lordaeron. There they hope to find a dwarf who can remove a pair of enchanted collars placed on Kalec and Anveena by a renegade High Elf named Dar’Khan. Dar’Khan believes Raac is the key to gaining a device called the Sunwell.
As Shadows of Ice begins, Wrym, an undead dragon creature, attacks Tyri who is in dragon form, causing her to spill her passengers. The band falls from the sky and become separated after their crash landings. Kalec encounters another large force of the Scourge and fights them until escaping into a cave with Raac, where the pair ends up becoming prisoners again.
Anveena finds herself in the company of Trag Highmountain and his compatriot Baron Valimar Mordis. Mordis was once a human nobleman, but the Scourge murdered him and revived him with the cursed powers, therefore transforming him into an undead creature like the Scourge. Mordis befriends Anveena, under the guise of helping her find her friends, but he has dark plans for her.
Meanwhile, Jorad and Tyri fight for their lives against a wave of Scourge that seems to grow larger every time they destroy one of them. Desperately and separately, the four friends fight their own private battles as they try to find a way back to one another. Surprising allies will appear, and a deadly enemy will make his sudden reappearance.
Simply put: if you like the high fantasy of Tolkien or the sword and sorcery of Robert E. Howard – or any of their disciples and followers for that matter, then Warcraft is for you. Knaak’s dialogue tends to be a bit melodramatic – imagine Stan Lee writing Conan, but Knaak can spin a comics narrative that just won’t let you put the book down. He has a knack (I had to go there) for distilling characters to the point where the reader can catch the characterization pretty quickly. This is good pulp-style fantasy with an emphasis on battles and the usual Machiavellian trappings.
On the art side, Jae-Hwan Kim is a fabulous comic book artist. His work has the energy of action manga, but with the romantic adventure flavor of Wu Xai (wuxai). He makes fabulous use of grayscale, which gives his work a wonderful texture and also solidity. While he’s a find draftsman, the way he uses caricature and abstraction to cartoon the human figure makes him perfect for creating the kind of manic energy of manga.
I liked the first volume, but now I know this series isn’t a fluke. Here’s to hopes that TOKYOPOP keeps the Warcraft manga alive past this trilogy.
