Lion Forge Roar 2018
Written by Mark Waid
Illustrated by Gene Ha
Coloured by Wes Hartman
Lettered by Zander Cannon
Still no closer to finding her father and now hurt over her separation from Abbie, Mae finds herself on her own for the first time since arriving in Cimrterén.
Welcome Mr. Waid to the world of Mae! Clearly a fan of the book he takes Mae on an adventure all her own with only her wits, brains and ingenuity. It doesn’t hurt that we open this issue the way it does after all Mae is wallowing in her own pity at a tavern spending the last of her Kroner getting wasted. Until of course a very handsome stranger steps up to talk to her and suddenly in her starstruck eyes everything was going to be just fine. Actually it’s really cute and even though she’s in college and very smart it is really nice to see just how she can still react like a normal average everyday girl.
There is nothing more dangerous than meeting someone with a face like that in a tavern. Oh but the way that this issue is structured and the undeniable attraction that the two have to one another well ya know. Once she meets Drydon who eventually puts together the fact that she’s Starbuck you just get this feeling that this will go one of two ways, either a fairy tale romance or a fatal attraction. After Mae wakes up in the morning in what looks like your average dorm room well average except for all the cinema equipment. It makes me as a reader wonder though how this technology was brought over when we’ve yet to see anything like it?
I have to say that the characterisation throughout is spectacular. Drydon’s innocent naivete is cute as cute can be and Mae using the knowledge of her world to make the simplest of things to make money well it’s really well done. While there are gaps, such as where the corn come from or what she used to make her toys, this is comics and it’s all about what happens now how. Still you’d think that this world-wind romance was something that was weeks in the making, although it was only days it still felt much longer than that so kudos for being able to fool me.
Gene got a chance this issue to really just focus on the illustration and boy oh boy has that been one of the absolute highlights of this series. The way he brings these characters to life is so extraordinary and the utilisation of colour by Wes to fill in the shading and enhance the facial structure is simply marvellous. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off such an eye for storytelling. The creativity and imagination on display here is gorgeous as well more so when it comes to some of the local species of people. The way that backgrounds are judiciously used enhances the scene when we see it in play beautifully.
Life can be harsh sometimes and if they’d used Mae, pardon me Starbuck, the way they should have things might have gone differently than they did. So that they left her alone in a laboratory of sorts with tools and the rest of it it’s no surprise that events unfolded as they did. I’m really rather impressed with how easily Mark was able to come into the series with this and make it feel like it fit seamlessly into what we’ve come to expect. Yes like any good artiste he put himself into it as well and that signature is also great to see as he blended it with Gene has brought before him.
Enchanting, enthralling and exquisitely rendered this is why I read comics.