WoW Comic Review 4
It seems that the World of Warcraft series is plagued by inconsistency when it comes to the quality of its storyline...and after a somewhat solid #3, #4 goes back to being a bit of a head scratcher. It doesn't lose the momentum that issue #3 built, but it doesn't seem to improve on it either.
Once again, the cliffhanger ending - in this case, Lo'Gosh falling from a Wyvern, is resolved within the first few pages and the issue quickly moves to Warsong Gulch. Indeed, Broll and Lo'gosh fly to Ashenvale to find shelter among the Alliance, since Broll has family among the Night Elves who live there.
Once in Ashenvale, our two former gladiators meet up with some Silverwing Sentinels and their Alliance allies, and they join with them to route a Horde war party. Once again, Lo'Gosh takes command and leads his group to victory. Barely. It turns out that Broll is an extremely powerful Druid. When a Horde shaman summons a lava elemental (Ragnaros sized!) and he threatens to burn the forest down, Broll unleashes his true power and nearly wipes out both forces before Lo'gosh knocks him out.
We then learn more about Broll's story, which is actually pretty interesting and makes the character much more than just "That guy with a bad temper who turns into a bear". It turns out that a powerful item that once belonged to Broll might be causing trouble to the Furbolg of Thistlefur Hold, so Lo'gosh and Broll decided to go there and help out.
Meanwhile, Valeera returns to Thunder Bluff, since her friends also eluded her when they got away from their pursuer. On her way back, she overhears a human assassin talking to Magatha about killing Lo'gosh. She decides to stick around to hear their conversation. Magatha shows the assassin the battle at Warsong Gulch through divination magic, after which he sets off to pursue them. Valeera, wishing to protect her friends, follows him, intent on stopping him.
Now overall, it is actually a somewhat solid issue. It's the little things however, that makes it less than it could be.
For starters, what's with all the divination and vision magic? So far this assassin character seems to be doing a lot of remote watching, which honestly, doesn't really fit in the Warcraft world.
Second, considering that Lo'gosh escaped because he wanted to find his family and help his people...it doesn't make much sense that he now decides to go help cleanse the forest near Thistlefur Hold. Unless he thinks he's a furbolg, I doubt he'll find much of interest there. The whole "quest" seems pretty arbitrary, but I'm guessing once again, that the character "needs" to be there for the story to unfold.
Lo'gosh also keeps up his flawless hero routine - his plans against the orc work perfectly and nobody questioned the leadership of a perfect stranger. I know Broll vouched for him, but still. It's just more forced logic in the storyline in order for the story to move forward...and it's not the first time Simmonson has used this, in fact it's a habit of his. The story simply doesn't flow naturally.
And while Broll's story was interesting, we're now a third of the way in the series, and we still know almost nothing about Lo'gosh or any real reason as to why we should care about him.
In short, while not a bad read, issue #4 isn't anything special. The story of Broll is interesting and fits extremely well into the established World of Warcraft lore, but this late into the series, one has to wonder where exactly Simonson is going with this.
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