Preview | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10 | #11
The story so far: Aalok has rode onto the battlefield and challenged Malagen. The final showdown is here. The rest of the war still rages on, Shrogram is seemingly unstoppable. G'Dar and Zeph seek vengeance. Jerell and Zana are just hoping to make it through the day.
We get our first answer to one of our questions pretty fast. What are the demons doing now? The demons have retreated and are playing a wait and see game now. They plan to let the mortals and vampires fight it out first then clean up the rest.
The battle with Shrogram is not going well. He is basically single handedly defeating the Eastern Kingdom's armies. His ability to rip people apart with their own weapons and armor is seemingly unmatched on the battlefield.
Even Greyson, Jerell's brother, falls in battle here. (Spoiler: This is not the last we will see of Greyson. Eventually he returns in Banished Knights.)
This is G'Dar and Zeph's chance to shine. Zeph has a plan to use a ballistae but they don't have to manpower to set it up. G'Dar springs into action and holds it up so Zeph can get off his shot. Not a normal attack, Zeph channels his magic into it as well and lands a fatal blow! For Delezar!
Now! To the main event. Malagen has practically created a giant tornado on the battle field. It is wreaking havoc all around and also creates the arena for the final battle. As a reminder Malagen is not only a strong warrior but he also is a very powerful sorcerer. And so the battle begins.
The rest of the war pretty much stops and watches the battle between evil and light. There are some amazing visuals on display during this fight. This next spread is especially awesome. The other characters can just stand in awe and watch the clash.
The two go back and forth a bit. The Darklyte Armor is draining Malagen's power. But Malagen points out the reason he did what he did in the last war is that Aalok's life is now linked with his. So Aalok, armor or not, prophecy or not, cannot defeat Malagen or it would mean giving up his own life. This is why he didn't kill King Atrelegis 300 years ago. This was his plan to stop the prophecy all along.
This gives pause to Atrelgis and allows Malagen to gain the upper hand, running Atrelegis through and claiming victory. The mortals also think he has failed and now Malagen will gain control of the armor and they may not be able to stop him.
Atrelegis surprises Malagen and strikes back! He is willing to accept the loss if it means taking Malagen down. So he does.
Tessan, ever the strategist recognizes the defeat and decides to abandon Malagen.
It has ended. Says Atrelegis as the two slowly die. But that wasn't enough so he decapitates Malagen as well. Ending the first volume of Warlands with a victory of the light!
Well, that was a whirlwind of adventure. Warlands is honestly probably my favorite comic book of all time. I know it is most likely an unpopular opinion, but I just love everything about it. The art, the story and characters, the setting. It is just really well done in my opinion. While re-reading it all I was worried maybe it would not be as appealing to the now older me... but it was even better this time around.
There were quite a few strange editorial oversights. Grammar mistakes and such in the story. But not a big deal. A lot of things really fall into place and nothing about the story really gets lost or forgotten. Though we do have unanswered questions, there aren't any major cliffhangers (that won't be answered in future books.) The main story at least is wrapped up.
I am a Marvel fan when it comes to superheroes so a lot of people that know me would expect Iron Man or Daredevil to be my favorite books. And they are probably my favorite superheroes, but reading their books often just feel repetitive or forced formula type books. There are some great stories, don't get me wrong, but in comparison reading Warlands almost feels epic on the level of something like The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
The bad guys were pretty well done. Malagen, Shrogram, and Verdemis especially. Malagen being an overarching, all-powerful type of character. Shrogram was obviously "the muscle", strong, silent, obedient. Verdemis was the down to earth, not outright evil but stuck in his role character, and I've mentioned before but I just really liked his character.
The good guys were a bit underdeveloped sometimes. The story concentrated pretty heavily on Elessa and King Atrelegis. Which is okay. They were the main characters essentially and they were done really well. Second to them would probably be Zeph. They fleshed out his background and abilities pretty well. Delezar also got some background and played a bit of an important role. I think G'Dar, Jerell, and the others were a little neglected though. G'Dar was the main representation of a clan that seemed pretty important to everything, his only real purpose to fight and be a warrior... but he only really fought once, at his beginning against demons. Jerell was set up at the beginning like he was super important and would be a main character but after the first issue was practically just a nameless soldier with the exception of having a bit of a relationship with Zana.
But, there is only so much you can do in a 12 issue comic book I guess. It was all well made up for with such a well put together over-arching war story. Many races, alliances, clashes, even races fighting you'd expect to be on the same side, demons vs vampires. Warlands is a very interesting world that is just being developed in this series.
The only real cliffhanger, besides wondering what will come of the characters now, is what about the demons? They were just hanging out waiting for the end of the battle to make their move. Seems like they're going to be difficult to deal with for whomever remains on the battlefield.
The good news is, there are like 4+ more continuations in this world. I have actually not read them all but there are 2 more Warlands volumes. The next is titled Age of Ice and features a grown up Zeph. There is also Shidima, which takes place hundreds of years before these wars. And Banished Knights, which takes place right after this war.
I'm thinking of reading Banished Knights next. Even though it came a little later, it picks up right after this one and is only 4 issues so might be a good time to read that.
Age of Ice takes place quite a bit in the future and I don't think really references much of volume 1. So it can probably wait some.
Volume 3 will probably be last. I have never actually read this one. :\ But I don't think it is very related to the rest.
Shidima is one of my favorites as well though so will probably definitely slip it in somewhere soon. It takes place before all the vampire stuff happens at all. It also has a bit of an Asian theme to it. It is centered around swordsmanship. But also magic. And the Shidima Empire.
Well... that is where we are! Hope you all enjoyed Warlands as much as I did. (the 2 or 3 of you actually reading this, if there are any at all haha.) I mostly am doing this because I like reading comic books and it gives me an excuse, so it doesn't really bother me much if I am just talking to myself. 😅