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Blizzard Entertainment ##0
Starcraft 2: Kerrigan - Hope and Vengeance
No single human being has been more inseparably tied to the twisted destinies of the terran, protoss, and zerg races than Sarah Kerrigan. She has risen from the ranks of soldier and rebel to become the unstoppable Queen of Blades, supreme ruler over a race of bloodthirsty aliens. But now she has fallen from her seat of power and been taken in by those who wish to separate the woman from the monster--a task which may be more difficult than it was to dethrone her.
Take a look inside the mind of one of the greatest villains in gaming history and prepare yourself for StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm with this explosive new comic from Blizzard Entertainment, Kerrigan: Hope and Vengeance.
Take a look inside the mind of one of the greatest villains in gaming history and prepare yourself for StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm with this explosive new comic from Blizzard Entertainment, Kerrigan: Hope and Vengeance.
10 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 6, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 20, 2023
This is a very short story, only 8 pages if you don't count the cover, but despite that it is quite good!
While it is rather short, the author managed to do a lot with so few pages and crammed in a lot of characterisation for not just Kerrigan, but also the soon-to-be Emperor Valerian!
While I have some huge problems with Starcraft 2's story and what they did with Kerrigan (not to mention the god awful, terribly written, stupid as hell ending her character receives) I still love her character and hold that the Starcraft 1 era Queen of Blades is still one of the coolest designs ever so I was eager to read this.
I was pleased with it. We get to see a bit of her youth, what happened when her powers awoke, how the Confederacy captured her, we even see her killing Mengk's da! We then see her as the Queen of Blades and get a bit of info on how she views herself as a person. Weaved throughout this Valerian's part of the story in which he questions what Kerrigan is, how he should deal with her, if she deserves mercy and if he's doing the right thing by trying to 'save' her. I enjoyed this as well, Valerian is a deceptively complex character who I quite enjoy so seeing more of his viewpoint was nice.
Alongside this, we have some amazing art, the page near the end that has the Queen of Blades standing atop a roaring Ultralisk gazing out across her vast armies is easily one of my favourite panels from any Starcraft comic.
So yeah, I really enjoyed it, more than I expected in fact. I read it and 'Artanis - Sacrifice' one after the other and it was a fun experience, since I got to see what was happening among the Terran and Protoss factions at around the same time.
Good characterisation, short enough to read during a lunch break, great art and, best of all, it's free! What more can you want?
While it is rather short, the author managed to do a lot with so few pages and crammed in a lot of characterisation for not just Kerrigan, but also the soon-to-be Emperor Valerian!
While I have some huge problems with Starcraft 2's story and what they did with Kerrigan (not to mention the god awful, terribly written, stupid as hell ending her character receives) I still love her character and hold that the Starcraft 1 era Queen of Blades is still one of the coolest designs ever so I was eager to read this.
I was pleased with it. We get to see a bit of her youth, what happened when her powers awoke, how the Confederacy captured her, we even see her killing Mengk's da! We then see her as the Queen of Blades and get a bit of info on how she views herself as a person. Weaved throughout this Valerian's part of the story in which he questions what Kerrigan is, how he should deal with her, if she deserves mercy and if he's doing the right thing by trying to 'save' her. I enjoyed this as well, Valerian is a deceptively complex character who I quite enjoy so seeing more of his viewpoint was nice.
Alongside this, we have some amazing art, the page near the end that has the Queen of Blades standing atop a roaring Ultralisk gazing out across her vast armies is easily one of my favourite panels from any Starcraft comic.
So yeah, I really enjoyed it, more than I expected in fact. I read it and 'Artanis - Sacrifice' one after the other and it was a fun experience, since I got to see what was happening among the Terran and Protoss factions at around the same time.
Good characterisation, short enough to read during a lunch break, great art and, best of all, it's free! What more can you want?
December 2, 2013
Eroldren reviews Blizzard Entertainment’s first foray into digital comics with a free one-off Heart of the Swarm comic.
“Rather a fascinating account which illustrates for us Sarah Kerrigan's backstory, misfortune and vengeance through an eyeful setup.” – Eroldren, The Founding Fields
After reading tweets here-and-there that where teasing people that we should anticipate for an exciting week in StarCraft storytelling, it’s now out and ready. And it’s entirely free on Comixology, various other online retailers, or found straight up on Blizzard's own SC2 battle.net site. If you played all the StarCraft games like myself or have no real clue who is Sarah Kerrigan, this comic is just the thing here to help prepare the stage for newcomers and campaign players alike as the forthcoming release date for Heart of the Swarm draws closer to March 12th.
Immediately it should be clear that Zoddd’s artwork in the interior pages that gives you the first impression a comic book. As for myself, I felt swept away by this new striking aesthetic style verse the work we've already seen in the War Pig and Frontline manga series. Particularly it was the first two environments that got to me but the rest were largely great pieces themselves which help convey the visual parts of the story. But if anything, the one that did irked me art-wise would've been those oversized portrayal of zerglings… I don’t know what was quite happening there.
Secondly, Cameron Dayton the author here tells us this comic is by through a series of flashbacks being recollected by Sarah Kerrigan in a conflicted manner. While the latter part still a “new” concept that I find both fascinating yet somewhat a disappointing reinterpretation of Sarah Kerrigan time while as the Queen of Blades. Kerrigan, the “Queen of Blades” turned out instead actually a hostile alien persona which had hijacked and repressed the mind of the real Kerrigan when the Overmind decided to infested the abandoned ghost. In one hand it had taken away some meaning to those atrocities and deception she committed throughout Brood War and turn into somewhat hollow badass villain moments whilst our real Kerrigan “no longer accountable” for her devastating crimes against the people of the Koprulu Sector. However in the other hand, it’s also understandable twist that the real Sarah Kerrigan, the terran at the heart of the matter wasn't the type of person, let alone ever being in control over her own life.
Although the story contest we’re shown in Hope and Vengeance amounted to 8 pages worth of material verse what a full-blown comic issue notably sits around 36 pages, all that packed detail inside was enough to get the general point across: Who is Sarah Kerrigan?
Lore enthusiasts of the StarCraft universe should be perked by this new entry as we see some of the established fiction and backstory of the expanded universe interweaves throughout these pages in small but eluded ways. Sure we see a fair share of familiar lore from the previous games being retold this time through Kerrigan’s unheard POV, we finally see TarKossia - her homeworld - her parents, the psionic incident that caught the Ghost Academy’s attention and a few extra highlights into her perspective as a Confederate ghost operative. Alongside all of that, Hope and Vengeance corresponds with Flashpoint as a neat follow-up story that features Valerian Mengsk. (Also, there’s a neat and easy homage to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind if you can spot it.)
However, in a slight downside for the people who are still wondering why Kerrigan is in this mysterious lab facility, this story doesn't brush upon that part of the timeline transition between Wings of Liberty’s ending and the start Heart of the Swarm. That’s story material which Blizzard tasked Christie Golden to explore instead with the Flashpoint novel which also help bridged together the two games.
On a final notice, don’t hang onto hope that we’ll be getting ourselves a comic miniseries despite Kerrigan – Hope and Vengeance being numbered as a #0 issue. Even I had a little kindled interest for one before I went out my way to confirm whether this was truly a standalone title or perhaps the start of some amazing new miniseries. Alas it was not meant to be. However, if fans receive this well other projects like one this can deemed as a worthwhile route of storytelling which we can expect plenty to appear for StarCraft and Blizzard’s other two big franchises - Warcraft and Diablo – further down the road. Spread the word around!
I've never been a big comic book guy; however, I enjoyed what I saw here and I definitely won’t mind seeing again more comic tie-ins for StarCraft told through this media format. There’s so, so very much potential in this universe that I’m dreaming about right now and it’s only getting bigger with each game.
Overall Verdict: 8.5/10
“Rather a fascinating account which illustrates for us Sarah Kerrigan's backstory, misfortune and vengeance through an eyeful setup.” – Eroldren, The Founding Fields
After reading tweets here-and-there that where teasing people that we should anticipate for an exciting week in StarCraft storytelling, it’s now out and ready. And it’s entirely free on Comixology, various other online retailers, or found straight up on Blizzard's own SC2 battle.net site. If you played all the StarCraft games like myself or have no real clue who is Sarah Kerrigan, this comic is just the thing here to help prepare the stage for newcomers and campaign players alike as the forthcoming release date for Heart of the Swarm draws closer to March 12th.
Immediately it should be clear that Zoddd’s artwork in the interior pages that gives you the first impression a comic book. As for myself, I felt swept away by this new striking aesthetic style verse the work we've already seen in the War Pig and Frontline manga series. Particularly it was the first two environments that got to me but the rest were largely great pieces themselves which help convey the visual parts of the story. But if anything, the one that did irked me art-wise would've been those oversized portrayal of zerglings… I don’t know what was quite happening there.
Secondly, Cameron Dayton the author here tells us this comic is by through a series of flashbacks being recollected by Sarah Kerrigan in a conflicted manner. While the latter part still a “new” concept that I find both fascinating yet somewhat a disappointing reinterpretation of Sarah Kerrigan time while as the Queen of Blades. Kerrigan, the “Queen of Blades” turned out instead actually a hostile alien persona which had hijacked and repressed the mind of the real Kerrigan when the Overmind decided to infested the abandoned ghost. In one hand it had taken away some meaning to those atrocities and deception she committed throughout Brood War and turn into somewhat hollow badass villain moments whilst our real Kerrigan “no longer accountable” for her devastating crimes against the people of the Koprulu Sector. However in the other hand, it’s also understandable twist that the real Sarah Kerrigan, the terran at the heart of the matter wasn't the type of person, let alone ever being in control over her own life.
Although the story contest we’re shown in Hope and Vengeance amounted to 8 pages worth of material verse what a full-blown comic issue notably sits around 36 pages, all that packed detail inside was enough to get the general point across: Who is Sarah Kerrigan?
Lore enthusiasts of the StarCraft universe should be perked by this new entry as we see some of the established fiction and backstory of the expanded universe interweaves throughout these pages in small but eluded ways. Sure we see a fair share of familiar lore from the previous games being retold this time through Kerrigan’s unheard POV, we finally see TarKossia - her homeworld - her parents, the psionic incident that caught the Ghost Academy’s attention and a few extra highlights into her perspective as a Confederate ghost operative. Alongside all of that, Hope and Vengeance corresponds with Flashpoint as a neat follow-up story that features Valerian Mengsk. (Also, there’s a neat and easy homage to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind if you can spot it.)
However, in a slight downside for the people who are still wondering why Kerrigan is in this mysterious lab facility, this story doesn't brush upon that part of the timeline transition between Wings of Liberty’s ending and the start Heart of the Swarm. That’s story material which Blizzard tasked Christie Golden to explore instead with the Flashpoint novel which also help bridged together the two games.
On a final notice, don’t hang onto hope that we’ll be getting ourselves a comic miniseries despite Kerrigan – Hope and Vengeance being numbered as a #0 issue. Even I had a little kindled interest for one before I went out my way to confirm whether this was truly a standalone title or perhaps the start of some amazing new miniseries. Alas it was not meant to be. However, if fans receive this well other projects like one this can deemed as a worthwhile route of storytelling which we can expect plenty to appear for StarCraft and Blizzard’s other two big franchises - Warcraft and Diablo – further down the road. Spread the word around!
I've never been a big comic book guy; however, I enjoyed what I saw here and I definitely won’t mind seeing again more comic tie-ins for StarCraft told through this media format. There’s so, so very much potential in this universe that I’m dreaming about right now and it’s only getting bigger with each game.
Overall Verdict: 8.5/10
May 2, 2014
Very Good Read!
Queen of Blades is one of my favorite characters. She is right up there with Bloodrayne. This small comic gives some insight on what happens in the game of Starcraft 2 plus a little extra. I recommend this to the zero lovers!
Queen of Blades is one of my favorite characters. She is right up there with Bloodrayne. This small comic gives some insight on what happens in the game of Starcraft 2 plus a little extra. I recommend this to the zero lovers!
July 13, 2015
StarCraft
Kerrigan is just amazing!!
The character is very complex. Cameron is doing an exceptional job as always. I would recommend it if you're a starcraft fan. As for me, I just like Kerrigan :)
Kerrigan is just amazing!!
The character is very complex. Cameron is doing an exceptional job as always. I would recommend it if you're a starcraft fan. As for me, I just like Kerrigan :)
May 9, 2017
5 stars
I chose this reading because it was free
and I would recommend this comic book anybody who likes starcraft books.
I chose this reading because it was free
and I would recommend this comic book anybody who likes starcraft books.
December 21, 2014
interesting Kerrigan Origin Story
The comic goes over Kerrigan after the events of Wings of Liberty. It delves briefly into her life before and then during her Ghost years.
The comic goes over Kerrigan after the events of Wings of Liberty. It delves briefly into her life before and then during her Ghost years.
April 24, 2015
Short and sweet
It's a nice look into the Queen of Blades before she became a monster. It's nice to know she's human.
It's a nice look into the Queen of Blades before she became a monster. It's nice to know she's human.
August 22, 2015
Good read
It was nice intro the the heart of the swarm expansion. I would recommend reading this along with the other star craft 2 books. Good stuff
It was nice intro the the heart of the swarm expansion. I would recommend reading this along with the other star craft 2 books. Good stuff
February 5, 2017
I love the Starcraft universe.
This short comic was good . . . I think. I had trouble reading it, because of the comic viewer. Was free though.
This short comic was good . . . I think. I had trouble reading it, because of the comic viewer. Was free though.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews