Dungeons & Dragons #5: First, the good. Honestly, I don’t think even the best issue of “Amazing Spider-Man” I’ve read in a while has banter anywhere near this good. The plots are pretty straight-forward, and it’s always fun to see how Fell’s Five gets themselves into a worse situation by the end of the issue than the bad situation in which they found themselves at the start. Now, the not-so-good. Rogers drops the ball a little in this issue; he introduces a bunch of new characters and concepts that wind up distracting him from wrapping up some loose ends. For example, why exactly were the creatures from the Fey Wild and the Shadow Fell conspiring to invade our plane? We never really got an answer, just the assertion that they were. How did they get the elven slaves? The slaves just sort of appear this issue; I found myself wondering if I had missed a secondary feature in previous issues that explained their provenance. Also, why were the changelings from issue #2 and #3 involved? Were they hired by the extra-planar invaders, or are they part of them? It appears we're unlikely to get answers to these questions since, at the end of the issue, we see our heroes catapulted into the void and into the next arc. Despite my issues with this, um, issue, I’m still looking forward to the next one, since it’s still one of the more fun books I read every month, occasional dropped plots and all.
Nonplayer #1: So, first, the obvious: "Nonplayer” is beautiful. I’m more of a plot guy than an art guy, but, seriously, this book is probably the most stunning of any I’ve ever read. The two-page splash page at the end – where we see the full integration of this world’s technology in daily life – is amazing. On top of that, the plot isn’t half bad either. Simpson hints that more is happening in the fantasy campaign setting that Dana (the main character) plays than she knows. If "Starborn" reminds me of “The Last Starfighter,” this series remind me of the old “Dungeons and Dragons” cartoon, which is high praise indeed.
Starborn #4: This series treads on familiar ground (as I said above, I’m reminded of “The Last Starfighter” reading it), but it adds some new twists that keep it interesting. I like that Roberson establishes two points of view here, with both the humans and the non-humans viewing the other as evil. I’m intrigued if we’re going to discover that Benjamin’s father really was some terrible despot or, if not, why the non-humans think he was. After four issues, we don’t know much, and I admire Roberson’s restraint, since I think it would be tempting to rush the reveal. The art is suitably grand, though the movements are occasionally unclear. All in all, it’s a really solid story that keeps me looking forward to the next issue each time.
The Traveler #4-#5: As I think I mentioned before during the Kang storyline in "Avengers," I'm not a huge fan of time-travel stories. Although this story is better done than most, I always question the events the person in the future is trying to manipulate, since s/he almost always has an easier option. For example, why didn't the Traveler just detain Ron, rather than going through the rigmarole of trying to manipulate the near-sighted driver, the bus driver, and the young bowler into making him late. At first, I thought it was because he couldn't touch Ron or something, but that wound up not being the case, as we saw in issue #4. But, overall, I'm willing to look past this sort of conundrum because, again, this story was better done than almost any other time-travel one I've read. Unfortunately, the storyline takes a bit of dive in issue #5. Ron's friend goes beyond just "I'm a physics geek with bad social skills" when he basically starts screaming at Ron for turning a positive -- his powers -- into a negative...you know, despite the fact that his fiancée and future father-in-law were just killed and he's lost in a time loop. The emotions of these sequences seemed really off-key to me, and it threw off the whole book. Hopefully it was just a one-off problem, and we'll return to the pretty strong writing we've seen in the other issues.
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