World of Warcraft, Vol. 1
written by Walter Simonson
illustrated by Ludo Lullabi

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Fantasy graphic novel

I have not played the MMORPG World of Warcraft in a while, but for many years, I played it a ton. One early quest line I’ve always remembered was “The Missing Diplomat,” which (spoiler alert) ended up being a search for clues about the missing king of Stormwind! I also remembered that it didn’t really have a satisfying ending, though it may have continued at a later time that I somehow missed. Of course, King Varian Wrynn is eventually reinstated and plays a role in later expansions, but I only ever heard bits of what happened to him while he was missing. Then we found a series of graphic novels at a library sale that tells that entire story. I’m not normally a graphic-novel reader (I struggle to follow the action), nor do I normally want to dive very deep into the lore of WoW that takes place outside of the game. But some of the storylines involved in quests in the game have intrigued me in the past, and this is one of the biggest ones, so I gave it a go.

All of that being said, I enjoyed my time reading this graphic novel. This is only part of the story, 1 of 4 volumes, and the mystery of why Varian is in this situation (far from home with a lost memory) is barely touched on in this volume. However, the end promised more to come. I think a lot of why I liked the book, though, is because of the references to and images of people and locations that I remember from my days playing the game. Though I’m an Alliance player and this was mostly on the Horde side, it still brought up a lot of nostalia. There are quite a few fight scenes that were difficult to follow (though based on other reviews, that might have been an issue with the book, not me), so I generally scanned until the end to see who won, who lost, and who was injured. And while I know this is common for this genre/game, that doesn’t mean I don’t still dislike the way females are portrayed (seriously, the harpies are practically naked).

Overall, though I can’t say whether anyone who hasn’t played WoW as much as me would appreciate this graphic novel at all, for those who do or have played the game, especially back in vanilla days, this might be worth checking out.

Find out more about World of Warcraft, Vol. 1

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!