Project Lore

I'm late to the show with this one, I know.  Get over it, because I couldn't resist picking up The Ultimate Edition (because it's so Ultimate) of the manga after reading through the available four volumes of Warcraft: Legends.  After all, if the success of The Sunwell Trilogy allowed Blizzard/Tokyopop to make another series, it couldn't have been bad.  Right?  With high hopes (and a bad current book) I took a deep breath and purchased yet another piece of literature from scribe Richard Knaak and his first effort with artist Jae-Hwan Kim.

Tokyopop's collection of all three mangas, Dragon Hunt, Shadows of Ice, Ghostlands, into a single hardcover edition made quite an impression on me.  The Ultimate Edition (is there a 'The Not-So-Ultimate Edition'?) binds all of the installments together in what is best described as a tome.  If I didn't know better the imposing size of collected works would have lead me to believe that a year long read was about to begin.  Tokyopop's craftsmanship doesn't stop at the physical construction and presentation of the literature either.  Included in the non-purist edition is a new, eight-page color prologue of the Sunwell's creation, a fantastic abridged history of WoW, an art gallery, developmental drawings and an afterword by the loremaster himself, Chris Metzen.  Ironically there is also an advertisement for the next manga trilogy from Knaak/Kim, Dragons Of Outland.  It'll be here in 2008...wait a minute.

Spoilers Ahead!

Dragon Hunt:  The first of the three partitions is the most boring, although it isn't a bad thing to be honest.  Like most of the manga (and literature) I have read, the opening of the Knaak's story is full of character introduction, development and backstory.  More than half of Dragon Hunt is dedicated to various introductions, some minor characters included, but the author slipped in subtle, yet important, details during the opening.  The front loading of characters distracted me from the story somewhat, but Knaak's writing style (and Kim's focused art) makes it hard to miss the really important points, like Tyrygosa's first appearance and the destruction of Tarren Mill.  The unorganized opening didn't instill high expectations for the rest of the trilogy.

Shadows of Ice:  Thanks to the abrupt ending of Dragon Hunt, Shadows of Ice starts off with a bang.  With all of the main characters introduced, Knaak ramps up the action and creates a sense of urgency in book two.  We're shown dragon battles, betrayal, a Scourge officer (I guess they aren't entirely mindless), and enough action to allow Kim to show off his artistic prowess. Shadows of Ice is where we meet Trag Highmountain, the star of Knaak's Legends storyline, and his master that betrayed the betrayer, Baron Mordis.  The pair are the main antagonists of this section and drive the story forward in a few interesting ways.  If you're looking for action, this subset of the trilogy is the book you want to pour over.  The flip side is that Knaak's storyarc takes a backseat to the battle sequences.

Ghostlands:  The entire first chapter of Ghostlands is dedicated to further character development.  It's taken some time but we are finally given details on Jorad Mace's past, which by a second hand account, details some aspects of the mysterious Borel and how the shadowed figure is tied to the storyarc.  Unfortunately Mace's story is fairly uninspired.  Up till now I had been waiting for something epic from him, but he ended up being a relatively underdeveloped main character.  Lor'themar and Sylvanas are given about the same development in the section and they are already known figures.  The aptly titled chapter, after all nothing is left around the old Sunwell, is a well-balanced combination of action and story telling.   The unusual cast of characters teaming up in the ending chapters to take on the empowered Dar'Khan was a nice touch.  The only real knock against Ghostlands is that Kim's art got a little to anime-y for me in some scenes, hardly a showstopping flub.

I know I have beaten Knaak's work pretty badly in various lore-focused posts, but this time I will give him a pass.  The characters he created, Trag, Aveena, or fleshed out, Kalec, Tyri, Dar'Khan happen to be part of the best work he's done in the Warcraft universe.  I just wish he didn't tie it all back to Korialstrasz again.  At least we have a Rhonin-less adventure on our hands.  Last but not least was the (semi) non-combat pet of Aveena's, Raac.  As cheesy the wind serpent was, I loved the bastard.

Spoilers Done.

The tome's own elegance, if not for Knaak's best action and character work to date, is worthy of any lore nuts' shelf space.  And yes, the book is impressive enough to be put on your shelf.  Right next to that Frostmourne.

If you are wonder about Dragons of Outland, the trilogy set during The Burning Crusade's timeframe, it is now scheduled for a Fall 2009 release.  Hopefully Wrath of the Lich King's manga (I'm assuming it is being planned) will be released in a more timely fashion.