REVIEW: Forgotten Runes #3 (of 10)

Magus Alizam must protect the lone surviving egg of a Cockatrice he slayed. A funny little wizard named Wazir visits the grieving protector and together the magi exchange a nice meal under the cold desert night and some very important words of wisdom.

Created by a team of 5 very talented artists, Forgotten Runes is a story of wonder, magic, and action. This issue is all about how Magus Alizam lost his familiar wolf Lucien during a battle with a Cockatrice that was terrorizing a town. When Lucien was killed, Alizam managed to slay the beast with one powerful grief-fueled magic blast but later realized that the Cockatrice was not evil at all, but was only trying to protect her last surviving egg. This story opens with a wonderful scene of Alizam battling a giant desert egg that is trying to eat the egg, but in reality, this is a somber story of loss, sadness, and above all, commitment. During the night Alizam is visited by Magus Wazir, a quirky little wizard whose sole mission is to help those that have lost their way. Alizam however is not truly lost, he is just waiting for the egg to hatch to continue his journey, however, deep down he feels emotionally lost after the death of his familiar, Lucien.

Whilst the story is rather somber, it does have a nice dose of action and comedy. Wazir serves as a very well-timed comedic relief in an otherwise deeply sorrowful episode. Out of the two characters, Wazir has to be my favorite. He is quirky and a little silly but at the same time very mysterious and serious. He reminds me of the character of Beast Boy with his childlike curiosity and humor. Even with the little bits of action here and there, which are quite beautifully illustrated, this is an issue that is more emotional and serves as a nice peaceful introspection into the mind of Alizam and through him, into the grieving process of ourselves as humans. It is meant to change your perspective on loss and put a more hopeful spin on losing someone dear and close to us, and to be honest I think it works very well. The general pace of the story is quite fast during the action sequences, which is to be expected but also uses some very cool panel layouts during the more backstory/lore segments that both help move the story along quicker but also help fill us in on who the characters are and their personalities. I hadn’t read this series before but the way that the panels are laid out and the character’s “magic” is used as extra panel borders make for a pretty easy-to-pick-up story.

The art is quite beautiful. At first, I thought that having 5 artists work on a single issue was a bit of an overkill and I was already expecting to read an old-school Marvel story where it feels like they are using 5 artists just to rush the production of the comic, however, this was not the case. Instead, we got a beautifully crafted story that plays to each artist’s strengths and comes together to deliver an action-packed and beautiful reflective story of what it means to be a human that lost someone they love. The overall character designs are very cool, and I love how the magi are all so different from each other. Even though Alizam’s clothing would be hell to wear during a sandstorm, the designs felt magical but not so magical that you wouldn’t believe that a wizard could wear that. The environment designs however are where this story excels. Even though most of the story is set in a desert, the way that the desert is colored and drawn gives off the heat-filled atmosphere that one would expect from a desert environment. The coloring on the characters is a mix between cell shading and black spotting whilst the backgrounds are rendered in a more painterly and textured look that makes for wonderful contrast between characters and backgrounds.

The lettering is just as well done as everything else. This is one example of leaving the appropriate task to the appropriate artist because I feel like everyone truly did hit out of the park with their specific tasks. I also really enjoyed the great number of sound fxs we got, they weren’t particularly creative sound fx designs but still, we got a nice variety of them and the actual letters and words used to convey sound were pretty creative so that’s always a plus.

I liked this story a lot, and I look forward to reading more about this world. At times it felt like I was reading a story set in a DND campaign which is not a bad thing at all and is something that I enjoyed greatly. I loved the mention of kobolds and pyromancers, it gave the world a bigger purpose and deeper lore that makes me interested in what other stories can be told in this world. It was also very nice to see the map of the world at the end, big Tolkien vibes on this one. The only thing I didn’t like was that instead of jumping right into the story we went from the credit page to the fan art page, and in my opinion, all of that material should go at the end of the book. We buy comic books first and foremost and what we want is to read the story, everything else is dessert and should come after the main meal. If you’re into fantasy, dungeons and dragons, magic, monsters or just really beautiful art, then this book is right up your alley.

Writing: 5 Stars
Art: 5 Stars
Colors: 5 Stars

Overall: 5 Stars

Written by: Joe Rechtman
Pencils by: Reilly Brown
Inked by; Tony Kordos
Coloring by: Jim Charalampidis
Lettering by: Taylor Esposito
Cover art by: Reilly Brown
Variant Covers by: David M Buisan & V.V. Glass
Published by: Titan Comics

Reviewed by Antonio “Mabs”