D'Orc #3 // Review
Look closely and you might see the carnage. Blood and severed heads littering a path of desttucion through the dark wood elves. There’s one dward responsible for all of the carnage. He is Gloinspear, Warden of Lightstorm. He has been tasked with annihilating the half dwarf, half orc. He’s been tasked with eliminating the threat that lends aid to both order and darkness. His crusade is about to be sidetracked in D’Orc #3. Writer/artist Brett Bean and colorist Jean-Francois Beaulieu continue the adventures of the little champion of neutrality who is forced to use whatever he can to survive a world hell-bent on his destruction.
Gloinspear is well on his way when he encounters a white mage merchant. He’s selling arms. Gruffle bombs. Potions of Gall. Scrolls of forgetfulness. The mage seems quite persistent in pursuing the dwarf, who only seeks knowledge of the whereabouts of the D’Orc. He’s going to have tremendous difficulty getting any information out of the white mage without engaging in some sort of commerce. The white mage DOES have some information that might be of use to the dwarf. Can the feisty, little agent of order settle down for long enough to get the information he seeks?
Bean’s story seems more than a little bit...obvious. It's not hard to tell exactly where the story is going from the very beginning. This is perfectly fine and nothing to be ashamed of as it is the case that the plot twist isn't terribly important to the story itself. It really is a matter of further exploring the heroism of the hero and exactly what it is that he's up against. And once again the hero seems that much more heroic for being someone who is in the middle of a great conflict and still managing to keep himself together, in spite of it all. It remains really entertaining, even though it's very obvious what's going on from the first page.
It's easy to overlook the fact that the issue is essentially a conversation between two people that stretch as much of the length of the issue. As a simple conversation between a champion of order and someone looking to sell him something. And that could come across as being intolerably boring we're not for the fact that Bean brings the drama to the page and a way that feels deeply engaging throughout it. The drama between the two characters is done in a style that feels comfortably over the top in every conceivable way. And as ridiculously amplified as it all is, it remains really entertaining.
Once again, it's nice to see the true hero in a tale like this being the one in the middle. It's always so difficult to swallow the idea of good and evil for the sake of high fantasy. Things are a lot more complicated than that. And it's nice to see a series that seems to almost effortlessly acknowledge this well maintaining a truly enjoyable and almost instantly iconic kind of heroism.
