Issue #1 - The first issue review and explanation of what I'm doing here.
Issue #2 - The set up continues.
Issue #3 - Prison break.
Issue #4 - Attack on the city.
The story so far: Knolan, Calibretto, and Gully arrived at the city to seek out King Vaneer. It is being attacked by the escaped prisoners though so they are pulled into battle. Garrison has geared up and is headed toward the action. Knolan's heart was stopped by the mage prisoner and Bulgrim is about to attack Gully.
The issue starts with a page long backstory on Bulgrim. The lady vessel was a common rogue that was doing grave robbing. She came across the bracelet that housed the Djinn, Bulgrim and put it on for power. Which cost her soul. Then we jump straight back into the battle where Calibretto and Bulgrim are going head to head. Bulgrim has the upper hand it seems.
Bulgrim makes it clear that his vessel is tainted and will not work for his plans. They need a pure soul to become the vessel so that he can break fully free. He thinks Gully fits and wants to use her as his new vessel.
Meanwhile the city soldiers are given the order to attack both Calibretto and Bulgrim. They are not effective against Bulgrim at all. But do some damage to Bretto. Gully has had enough and breaks out the gauntlets to help fight Bulgrim and protect Calibretto from the soldiers.
Switching to Knolan's fight, he seems to be dead and Cranius, the little, big headed mage prisoner, decides to steal Knolan's knowledge. Turns out that it was all a trick. The old mage replaced himself with an exploding look-a-like. Knolan then shows why he is the Wizard Extraordinaire. He appears through a wall that he was camouflaged in to cast a banishing spell that seems to suck Cranius down into hell.
Garrison finally arrives and out of instinct goes to the same place he fought Brass Demur before. Demur kind of implies that he is the one that killed Garrison's wife to be, though this is not too clear. I may be reading too far into it. The two fight for a few pages with Garrison mostly being on the offensive, though not hurting Brass Demur. Demur overestimates himself however. Taunting Garrison and trying to make him lose himself to rage, it does not work and Garrison lands a blow that is in a spot that Demur's armor does not protect.
Brass Demur is still a bit cocky and catches Garrison's sword. That is when garrison releases some kind of magical force from the blade that seems to do something to Brass Demur to cripple him.
Jumping back over to the Bulgrim fight, Gully is now taking him head on with the power of her gauntlets. Still trying to get to Gully to become the new vessel and be set free, Bulgrim continues the attack and even manages to grab Gully and head toward the vessel.
Calibretto realizes what is going on and manages to destroy the bracelet which sucks Bulgrim back into his prison and knocks the vessel out. The battle is finally over and our heroes stand victorious.
Unable to celebrate or take a breather the King shows up with some guards and some ominous words that imply he is responsible for bringing them all together.
This issue was very action packed and I loved it. Gully taking Bulgrim head on is one of my favorite panels ever and that double page shot of Bulgrim vs Calibretto was really great too. The Garrison and Brass Demur fight had some great sequences and it is always nice to see the heroes victorious. However, as great as what we got was, I feel like it was a bit short. We built up 4 issues and the three battles were all mostly fought and ended in a single issue. Comic books do this a lot honestly and I almost always feel let down a bit. Kind of anti-climatic even. I'm not expecting a 30 episode anime fight, DBZ style or anything, but a couple dozen pages of action after waiting 4 issues just isn't enough!
Still, a great issue and a good start to an interesting world and set of characters. We haven't seen Red Monika since the jail break though. Wonder what she is up to? With only 4 issues to go, I feel like I'm going to be extremely disappointed when things end... but at the same time it has already been very awesome, so I can't complain too much.
An interesting factoid, I think this is the first issue after Wildstorm (and by extension Cliffhanger) was sold to DC Comics. That is why the cover doesn't have the Image logo on it this time. Sadly it doesn't come back to Image until issue 9 which is the last of the series.
Anyway, hope everyone is enjoying the story (and art) as much as I am. I'll be back with #6 soon enough.
To Be Continued!
