And the game expands to the next level.
Creative Staff:
Story: Chad Bowers, Chris Sims
Art: Ghostwriter X
Colors: Karl Fan
Letterer: Josh Krach
What They Say:
The Atari Age returns to comics with the most unexpected story of the year: SwordQuest! In 1984, Peter Case was on his way to being crowned champion of SwordQuest, set to win the last of four contests and lay claim to a golden sword worth over $50,000! But when the game was discontinued, Peter found himself without a game to finish. Now, over thirty years later, Peter’s stuck in a different kind of game entirely — the game of life, and he’s losing fast. But when he learns that all the prizes meant for the SwordQuest contest of his youth are on display in the World Arcade Museum, he finds an unknown determination that sees him put together a team of like-minded losers for the ultimate heist job — a real-life sword quest!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The zero issue of Swordquest gave us a lot of material to dig into as it set the foundations for this series, all while being free digitally or a quarter in print. Bowers and Sims clearly know the era well enough to stake out what was being played back then and while some of it may seemingly be presented in a kind of blunt way the simple truth is that for many kids, especially those that loved video games, they dominated things at that time since selection was a bit more limited. The artwork is still something that largely works for the series with its kind of rough approach in doing the real world thing but it’s still an area that I’m struggling just a bit to connect with and to think it’s the right path to go. Time will tell.
This installment has a lot of ground to cover and it does it pretty well, what with Peter heading to the book signing so he can meet up with childhood friend Amy. While he is intending to mostly use her to get closer to the sword itself, there is a thrill in being able to see such an old friend again. There’s such joy coming from her that it’s positively infectious and you can see Peter almost struggling with it. Less can be said when Alvin arrives, however, as the two have a very complicated history that goes back to their teenage years. We get to see it play out to some degree and it’s hard to tell if it’s mixed signals, youthful uncertainty, or something else that helped to break the two friends apart from each other and all the fallout that came from it. It certainly explains a lot and is the kind of baggage for many that’s incredibly difficult to get past.
The rest of the book is just a bit awkward to some degree. While we get told that it’s “player two” at the end, there’s a man that’s checking up on things related to the sword that Peter is after and is intent on coming to Peter. We get some fun at the game museum where we see that it’s hanging at the moment, recently cleaned and all, and the nods to it through Peter’s storyline helps to reinforce it as the holy grail for him. That reaches nicely into his notebook and things he brought to show Amy in order to get her to help him, but the situation with Alvin has him questioning everything he’s doing on top of the struggle with his illness. The new arrival at the end sets the stage for things to change to be sure but it really felt like we needed a bit more of a hook for him in the here and now instead of more waiting. That said, there are some fun moments in watching him get his things in order and head to where Peter is as he’s going to be the type with some real physical presence.
In Summary:
I still don’t know what to make of Swordquest. I’m sticking with it because I’m curious to see what they’re going to do with it. And because it has a lot of fun game references and little bits and pieces coming into it that reminds me of my own past. And because I’m hopeful for more Atari properties to get creative properties made from them in comic form. A lot of the nostalgia is really toward the old Atari Force comics and hoping that something along those lines can find their way into reality here. Bowers and Sims have an interesting concept coming into play here with lots of nostalgia pushing it forward. I’m still less enthused by Ghostwriter X’s artwork, more so because I’m not sure it fits the project as opposed to the artwork itself, but it’ll likely slowly grow on me.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: June 21st, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
