Revenge is a dish best-served cold etc etc.
Creative Staff
Writers: Jody Houser, Matthew Mercer
Artist: Olivia Samson
Colorist: Msassyk
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Cover Artist: Marina Romero Arias
What They Say
The Winter’s Crest Festival packs an extra punch!
And this time, we don’t mean the quaffable variety. After their victory in the fighting ring, Vox Machina witness a shocking interruption to the seasonal festivities! An unprovoked magical attack sends our unlikely heroes chasing the suspect through a portal to–aw heck, you better just read it for yourselves.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Winter’s Crest festival that has been lurking in the background takes center stage, and Vox Machina just wants to have fun. While in D&D there are plenty of times where a party is just a party, this time it’s a plot device. We only get a two-page montage of the gang messing around before all hell breaks loose. Well, hell if hell has frozen over.
There is a character cameo in this volume that kinda showed the problems of an evolving portrayal of certain characters. Gilmore has been almost uniformly officially portrayed as a darker-skinned man. Here the cameo has him as far lighter than average. But… it’s only a few panels and it appears to be more of a cameo of Matt Mercer as Gilmore than how Gilmore is usually portrayed. Minor quibble, but sure to annoy some.
With the town turned into popsicles the group confronts and then follows a strange icy being into a portal to another dimension. You know, as you do. Left behind are Vax, Trinket, and Gilmore. The evil icy lady is your stereotypical naked lady with hair mostly covering the naughty bits. I say mostly because she’s very angular and not sexy in the slightest, from a traditional point of view. She’s also evil for the sake of evil and has no redeemable qualities. It’s not surprising in the least when the final panel of the issue is a reveal of her true form. (Which is a very good design.)
The artwork in this volume continues apace with what has been presented in previous issues. The nicest-looking panel in the entire issue is one bottom panel featuring Vex and Percy. The artist is focusing on Vex because of motivation purposes but adding in the support of Percy is foreshadowing for events that will never be covered in this series.
The lack of an overall story arc for this mini-series is starting to bring the story down though. While I could point out that the nature of D&D is non-scripted and you can never control the party, we never saw these storylines play out. They could have fudged a large amount of the actual events (and they have edited Tiberius out of the narrative entirely) even further and we’d never know. Instead, we’re just watching an extremely condensed version of half-remembered tabletop sessions from years ago. I still don’t think this is the best medium for adapting such a long-form story. Part of the reason I’m glad that they’re taking a different route with the upcoming Mighty Nein graphic novels.
In Summary:
It might be the heart of summer but it’s ice all the way down in Emon. Once again the situation had turned personal for Vox Machina as an icy witch curses the city and turns a festival crowd into icy sculptures. This series remains a strictly-for-fans endeavor as side characters aren’t even named in this volume, expecting the reader to fill in the blanks. This is a problem when the tension is non-existent because fans know there’s no real danger here. The action is adequate but not very gripping, and the coloring is just there doing its job. I’m hoping the battle in the next issue is a bit meatier.
Grade: B –
Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date: August 18, 2021
MSRP: $3.99 US
