The world is torn apart by war and a King must kill his son to restore order. Find out if King Olric can get his revenge in A King’s Vengeance #1 by Scout Comics!

A KING’S VENGEANCE #1

Writer: Davila LeBlanc and Peter Ricq
Artist: Peter Ricq
Colorist: Peter Ricq
Letterer: Peter Ricq
Editor: Fronc Ng and Phillippe Ivanusic Vallee
Publisher: Scout Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: December 22nd, 2021

Previously in A King’s Vengeance: Mozdial has been resurrected and is recovering his power. One of his first tasks was to cast a spell on the Queen to deliver her own son’s body as a vessel. King Olric has called allies from around the world to wage war before Mozdial recovers from his spell, but it has been nearly four years and his ally’s loyalty wavers.

AN IMPOSSIBLE MISSION

A King’s Vengeance #1 begins with a grim battlefield with a bunch of men killed on wooden spikes. With most of King Olric’s army dead, it is only logical to retreat. However, there is no way for the motley crew to survive and Olric moves forward by himself. After fighting through the front gate, Olric is face to face with Mozdial who is in his son’s body. Olric doesn’t stand a chance as Mozdial casts a spell to rip off his limps and throws the King into a pile of bodies to bleed out. Before he dies, he sees a woman come by and steal his trusted raptor mount.

DID I MISS SOMETHING?

I don’t really understand a lot of what is going on in this issue. As I finished reading A King’s Vengeance #1, I looked to see if this was a sequel to something else and what I found was that this is a Kickstarter book. This is meant to be a single graphic novel and this single issue that we are reading sets up the rest of the book. As a standalone issue, this doesn’t work at all. As an introduction, it might work well enough if we are introduced to the rest of the book immediately. This becomes a difficult book to review, because the only thing we see is our protagonist, King Olric, dying. And only through reading the solicitation and the Kickstarter do we learn that he eventually comes back to life to finish his quest. But the comic itself doesn’t give any sign of that. I wonder if we could have afforded another page to foreshadow some of these things for the sake of the readers reading this issue by issue.

At the very least, the art is pretty cool. While I’m not used to the character design, the backdrops of everything are aesthetically pleasing. Great work there from Peter Ricq.

BOTTOM LINE: DOES NOT WORK AS A STANDALONE

I wonder why the book is being released in individual issues. A King’s Vengeance #1 is not a good introduction comic. It left me confused and didn’t hook me into the next issue. I couldn’t even find an apparent theme that sets itself up. However, I don’t think it was designed to be that and may be best to reserve judgement of the series to the second issue. 3 out of 5 for A King’s Vengeance #1 with the warning that I am sure it will make more sense next issue.

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