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The story so far: Aalok and Verdemis have found the Darklyte Armor but it is guarded by a giant ice dragon. Malagen and his army march toward them but the Eastern Kingdom's armies stand in his way. They are also quite successfully attacking their supplies in the rear. Our party of heroes has passed through a demon nesting ground to get to a glowing blue cave they believe to be the home of the Darklyte Armor.
When Aalok attempted to get the armor in the previous issue he awakened the guardian. This issue begins with Verdemis summoning Shim'Tar to counter. He orders the other vampires to keep the guardian occupied so he can finish his spell.
The guardian is a frost dragon. It freezes most of the vampires pretty quickly but Verdemis is able to complete his spell. While all this is going on the heroes are wandering a blue lit cave wondering if they're wasting their time. But the hear the commotion finally and head that way.
Not too far from the cave is the main battlefield. Which would make sense. Malagen is also heading to the Darklyte Armor. A giant summoning portal opens over the battlefield. Everyone stops in awe as a two headed dragon appears.
Back in the cave even the guardian notices. In a flash it takes off breaking through the mountain side to confront Shim'Tar. Verdemis confident in his pet is blindsided by a blast from Delezar.
It would seem our heroes finally caught up with the vampires. It also seems the only one left is Verdemis himself. So can they defeat him and Aalok and claim the armor?
Meanwhile, in the rear guard on the battlefield Shrogram strolls in like a boss.
This new foe proves too much and is wrecking the mortal's once successful campaign to attack the rear supplies. After a little while of ripping through the Eastern Kingdom forces with some kind of odd power (he is not so much attacking them, they're just flailing around) the Myrish King has an epiphany. The metal of their armor and weapons is being used against them. It is like a giant magnetic effect. So the King orders a retreat.
Back in the cave Elessa runs ahead, speeding past Verdemis to get to the armor. This was unexpected and created an opening for Verdemis to attack Delezar. Which he does and seems to maybe have killed the mage. Some kind of hooded mage materializes in front of them to take revenge, this is mysterious!
However, outside the dragon battle is coming to an end. Shim'Tar comes crashing down, the guardian dragon comes flying back through the mountain. Everything is chaos as the cave is collapsing in on itself.
Elessa is seemingly crushed to death by a boulder. But really we have no clue what all happened here.
Who is dead? Who survived? What about Aalok, did he get the armor? The action in this issue was off the charts! What a cliffhanger though. The armor is up for grabs still. We don't know who, if any, of the main characters have died. The Eastern Kingdom's luck ran out pretty quick on the battlefield with Shrogram now ripping through them. That dragon battle was huge! And what about the demons? Are they going to spring forward and take advantage of the chaos? Maybe...
To Be Continued!
Before I finish this up I wanted to also talk a little about the popularity and sales of this comic book and compare it some to Battle Chasers, the last book I read/reviewed. It was not quite on the level Battle Chasers in terms of sales. I think this is mostly due to the creators. Joe Mad was immensely popular at the time, having come from X-Men. Pat Lee was relatively unknown. Though Warlands was not far off. Battle Chasers was in the top 10-15 comics during its run, selling between 60,000-75,000 copies per issue. Warlands was in the top 20-25, selling between 30,000-40,000 per issue. Really not bad at all. In fact, Warlands (as well as Dark Minds, pat's sci fi comic) was among the most popular indie books of the time. It was huge.
Unlike Battle Chasers, Warlands does not end prematurely and is almost released monthly. Which is pretty awesome.
The stories are quite a bit different, despite both being somewhat fantasy based. Battle Chasers was 'arcanepunk' with its magic centric but technology driven characters and plots. It also heavily focused on the characters and their adventures rather than the world around them. Warlands is more traditional fantasy. It also has good characters but focuses a lot on the grander scale. It almost feels like a war story with some adventure thrown in. But the characters do progress well also we just happen to have a bigger world view in this one.
The art is amazing in both. I find myself flip flopping all the time on which I like best. But... I often choose Warlands because well... dragons are awesome! 😁