By: Christy Marx (story), Aaron Lopresti (art), Hi-Fi (colors)
The Story: The mother and daughter who stick together survive assassinations together.
The Review: Whenever there’s a cancellation, no matter how deserved, I always feel rather sorry for the creators. For Marx, Lopresti, and Hi-Fi, that kind of pity goes even further, considering how brief their time on this series has been. Still, the writing was on the wall since the title debuted on the low end of the rankings (#84, according to Comichron), and has only spiraled downward ever since (#139 just last month).
I’m sure, however, that Marx et al knew that the climb would always be a rather steep one. Even in the generally geeky world of comics, the fantasy genre is something of a niche area, and a fantasy series starring a teenaged girl in a world of crystals is only going to have it even harder appealing to an audience of mostly male twenty-somethings. Much as we’d like to believe comic book readers have grown more diverse in their tastes, I suspect a title like Sword of Sorcery will always have to struggle a little for success.
Unfair as it is, Marx really needed to launch this series with a bang to get the devoted following and good word-of-mouth it needed to survive. Unfortunately, Marx has delivered a story that’s only been decent from the start and never got much better. One problem is there’s never been a unified tone to the writing; somehow the different parts of Marx’s story—the political intrigue, the mother-daughter drama, the magical continuity—have always remained separate from each other, never quite gelling into something you can identify as quintessential Sword of Sorcery.
Then, too, we’ve spent a lot of time going through a lot of setup and exposition without much payoff. Even here, at the sixth issue mark, where most titles would be concluding their first arc, we still haven’t gotten what you can legitimately call a climax. The two or three-page battle between Amy and Graciel versus the Onyx assassins feels brief and mechanical, hardly the stuff that makes for great fantasy action. Even worse, we still don’t really have a strong sense of direction for the series, of what its overall premise is meant to be.
It’s really too bad. Even now, I can see a lot of potential for imagination and fun in the world of Nilaa. Looking at the multiple crystal gateways in Lord Firojha’s kingdom, you realize there’s a ton of other gem nations to explore, endless combinations of house conflicts to work with, a whole variety of different powers and skills for each race to show off. There’s a rich history ready to be mined for stories (you learn that a former lady of House Amethyst once went to Earth and “carried away an evil and so ended the [War of the Eclipse]”). There’s the interesting possibility of some random individual suddenly inheriting the powers of a gem-lord who dies without an heir.* In many ways, I am sorry for the door to be closed on this world when we’ve barely scratched its surface.
The early cancellation is also disappointing because it seems like Lopresti has only just started to really strut his stuff. His art has always been pretty and attractive, but I can’t say it was any more than that until now. When you look at the close-ups of the characters now, there’s an intensity of expression that looks like real, serious comic book art. Even without Hi-Fi’s pulsing colors, you can see how good and powerful Lopresti’s style is.
There’s also the possibility that Sword of Sorcery might have had a better chance of making it had it not been burdened with some rather superfluous, disconnected back-ups (adding on an extra dollar to the price-point). Mark Andreyko’s offering almost begs you to be forgotten. After Stalker gets his latest target, it takes him about two panels to find someone who apparently eluded “Lucifer” for years, only for you to find out—spoiler alert—his target is (obviously) the long-lost descendant of the child he’d rejected centuries before. Expect no help from Andrew Bressan’s merely functional art, with unremarkable colors from Chris Sotomayor.
Conclusion: Some stories take time to make good on their potential, but unfortunately, this title hasn’t got that kind of time. As disappointed as I am that this creative team is getting the ax just as they get started, I don’t have so much loyalty to remain with a sinking ship. Dropped.
Grade: C
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – Dang. I do have to admit that I like the idea of a thief suddenly coming into a massive amount of magic power.
Grade
Conclusion