Anyone following my reviews will know that I’ve already said my piece about every single issue in this limited series, in which I lauded the team on Magekiller for making something pretty great. That being said, when it was time for the trade to hit shelves, I once again jumped at the chance to give this book another shot, especially since I’d be able to read it as a whole and not just in parts from month to month. So, here’s another look at Dragon Age: Magekiller, a series so good, I volunteered to review it twice.
Being a tie-in to the Dragon Age: Inquisition game, this was a series that initially got its fair share of skepticism, since those kinds of adaptations aren’t usually very good. But, with the creative team of Greg Rucka, Carmen Carnero, Michael Atiyeh, and Terry Pallot on board, this had a lot of promise. Also, the source material was pretty great, so that helped.
The series lived up to the high expectations of the game’s success (at least to me) and delivered on the promise of another look into the goings on of those who live in the wold of Thedas during the time of the Breach and the return of the Inquisition.
Greg Rucka has done some fantastic work in his career, and while I wouldn’t rank this among his best, that is only because he has set a very high bar for himself. Lazarus alone makes this series impossible to attain the top rank among his work, but that being said, this is a terrific piece of writing. As a big fan of Rucka, I feel that he did everything that could have been asked of him when it came to writing a miniseries for a game. Reading it as a complete story actually gave the feeling of a bit of distance from the source material, though that was made up for in the effort to make it feel like it came from that very world. Rucka did a great job of coming into this universe and crafting inside it, using just the right amount of fan service and new material to make it realistic.
The art team nailed it with this series. Terry Pallot, Michael Atiyeh, and Carmen Carnero rocked this book, giving it all the look of the game and the universe as a whole. It’s hard to say too much about the art team on this one, but only because it’s at such a good level that saying anything other than how awesome it is would be a disservice.
This reads better as a trade, for certain. The whole story feels more complete that way, though it does lose a bit of its excitement, as the end of one issue and the beginning of the next can get a bit muddy sometimes. But having the whole tale in one book is a great way to read it. I loved this series the first time I read it, and while the second viewing gave me a slightly different perspective, it’s still a terrific read and worth reading multiple times. I really hope that Dark Horse Comics makes more tie-ins like this one.
