Dungeons & Dragons: Evil At Baldur's Gate

Dungeons & Dragons #4

by Jim Zub, Dean Kotz (Illustrator), Steven Cummings (Illustrator)

The Baldur's Gate heroes return to the city at last, but their time adventuring in Ravenloft and the frozen northern reaches of the Realms has changed them. Still, each of them must face great trials ahead before they'll be ready to embrace their destiny. A new hero of the people roams the streets of Baldur's Gate, and Minsc feels left behind despite his own legend. Can he reclaim his place as the city's Beloved Ranger? Whatever happens, evil is going to gets its butt kicked most thoroughly! Advance solicited for December release! Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition continues to grow each year, and the Baldur's Gate video games have sold millions of copies around the world.

Genres: Comics, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Dungeons and Dragons, Forgotten Realms, Graphic Novels Comics, Games

128 pages, Paperback

First published December 18, 2019

About the author

Jim Zub is a writer, artist and art instructor based in Toronto, Canada. Over the past fifteen years he’s worked for a diverse array of publishing, movie and video game clients including Disney, Warner Bros., Capcom, Hasbro, Bandai-Namco and Mattel.

He juggles his time between being a freelance comic writer and Program Coordinator for Seneca College‘s award-winning Animation program.

Reviews

[Sean Gibson]

Some self-contained shenanigans in the form of solo or small group stories featuring the gang; lost a little momentum from the last volume, but still fun enough to crack the spine on during a cold winter day to tide you over in between game sessions.

[Nathan Haines]

It was good. The artwork is good. Stories good. Characters good. I mean none of it blew me away, but it was solid throughout and fun to read.

[Valéria.]

I loved it even more than previous one. But I kind of hate the way how panels with multiple charactera are drawn. Everytime when there is more than one person, okay, more than two - faces are looking like minimum of effort was put into them. Still, if you're looking for good fantasy story filled with fun, this is it.

[Doc]

Don't bring a knife to a face fight!

After returning from their recent arctic adventure the crew returns to Baldur's Gate as each of them deals with something that has come up ultimately splitting the party. Luckily not being in a dungeon this is not a deadly proposition but that does not mean things are not about to get dangerous as each of the stories is basically focused on one member or at least a small group. The major exception to this split party story time is Nerys Kathon who for those that have been reading the rest of the mini-series has a very real and dangerous ailment that requires all of her allies and a powerful spell to save.

So unlike the previous mini series for Baldur's Gate the stories within this book are basically Minsc and Boo discover a "hero" with an unusual sort of tastes and deal with him, Krydle's past comes back to haunt him allowing him a chance to resolve a problem with the help of Shandie, Delina is looking for a way to make her magic less wild and ends up where disorder is actually illegal, a barfight leads to her allies discovering the truth about Nerys's condition, and finally some villains trying to make a name for themselves are trying to find our heroes while their guards are down. It is a real shame for them Boo, the miniaturized giant space hamster is on patrol and decides to single handedly take all of them down himself in one of the most adorable guerilla warfare style fights ever. :)

[C.T. Phipps]

The follow-up to the events of INFERNAL TIDES, we get our protagonists returning in secret to Baldur's Gate. The protagonists are still outlaws in said city due to the events of the first graphic novel where they managed to bring down a Cult of the Dragon offshoot but made a right mess of things doing so. Here, we get some stories that are not linked by an over-arcing plot. Minsc's hamster Boo goes on an adventure, we get to deal with the thieves' old nemesis, and we finally have a follow-up on the lycanthropy plotline established in the Ravenloft arc. It's all well and good but doesn't feel very connected the way stories should.

Still, my favorite story is definitely Delina visiting the Plane of Mechanus where she's brought up on charges of bringing Chaos. Which is true given she's a Wild Mage.

[Anja]

2.5*
This was fine. I'm glad we got a resolve from the ending of the last volume, but sadly everything in this felt so rushed and disconnected. I actually enjoyed the last story with the hamster the most, which is very unusual for me, haha.

[James Bowman]

An entertaining collection of D&D stories. Each story in this volume is focused on one member of the cast of the series, with tones ranging from sillier (Boo and Minsc's stories) to much more serious (Krydle/Shandie and Nerys' stories). My pick of the litter was Delina's story, mainly for the Planescape nostalgia, but the others are fairly good as well. This was also a nice break from the two previous volumes and their focus on official adventure tie-ins. (B+)

[Darcy]

What a terrific way to end this series (So far... there may be more.... finger crossed!) This is a compilation of five stories with one featuring Minsc, another, Krydle and Shandie, a third with Delina, followed by a tale with Nerys and, to wrap it all up, a story all about Boo! Yes, you heard me right, Boo, in all of his miniature giant space hamster goodness. What a marvelous way to end the collection. Before I get too far ahead of myself let me tell you that yes, this could be read on its own, but I think the enjoyment would only be enhanced by having the full backstory of all these characters so their trials will be more illustrative of their characters.

All of these stories are writien by Jim Zub and he is ably backed up by a variety of artists: Dean Kotz, Steven Cummings, Harvey Tolibao, Ramon Bachs, and Francesco Mortarino. They all collaborate well together and provide a rich background of Baldur's Gate where all of these tales take place. Well, Delina's takes a bit of a detour, but it starts and ends there. These stories are really redemption tales. Our heroes have some baggage and it was time to deal with it. However, none of these individual quests feels forced or abbreviated. Each narrative allows them to face their inner demons and to resolve them, one way or the other. Well, except for Boo, who has no demons, what with being a Space Hamster and all!

This is really a fitting end to our cadre's travels and is a very entertaining read. However, if there is more, this leaves things open for such an eventuality. Absolutely worth it and recommended.

[Carey Healy]

This volume really is just a compilation of separate short stories that take place at Baldur’s Gate. Outside of having the same characters, the stories are not interconnected. As such some of the stories hit while others miss. If it wasn’t for the comic relief of the last story, this volume would only be getting 3 stars.

The art is colorful and vibrant. It resembles more of a Saturday morning cartoon than most comics that interest me. It really made the tone of the story light and fluffy, and for the most part it works for the plots contained within. If you are looking for a serious story, don’t look here.

As a comic, it works well, but nothing really stands out good or bad. The layouts are effective but forgettable.

Overall, the book is a good light palette cleanser, but it doesn’t offer a serious or memorable experience.

[Quinn]

(+)
- Everyone's getting a little vignette of their own, so that's fun. It's a nice way to break up the story telling. Even Boo gets a story; how cute!
- Delina's vignette in Mechanus is a fun display of how wacky and multiversal D&D can be. They even slip in a taste of body horror. Go figure!
- The work occasionally has lines that go hard, like: "there are no allies, only bodies!"


(-)
- "I'm not an assassin!" says the guy who proceeds to merc 2 people mere panels later.
- There's a minor character named "Crimbo." I don't know whether this is incredibly dumb or genius. I'm leaning toward the former.

These comics continue to be "good enough." If I hadn't gotten them in a Humble Bundle (and if I wasn't so behind on my yearly reading quota), I'd probably just move on.

[Dale]

Baldur's Gate 3 is very big in my household right now so this seemed like an opportune moment to check this out. It's a series of loosely connected vignettes - a classic D&D party comes back to their home city after adventuring and each member gets the focus for one issue as they do solo stuff - and I liked the wide range of approaches, from a ranger dueling with an oni to a chaos sorcerer getting trapped in the dimension of pure order to a lone hamster taking down a band of brigands. Fun stuff!

[Derek]

I present my son: Preteen. Literate. Sporadic D&D player. Lover of both adventure and slapstick comedy. Hamster enthusiast. It was like this book, this whole concept, was made for him.

The best thing it does is not take itself entirely seriously. The grimmer concepts are well leavened with the silly, and while Minsc would be hard to take in real life, everything he says (proclaims, really) is eminently quotable and exactly what you'd expect to hear from "that guy" at the gaming table.

[Peter]

Good news! The story focuses on the characters through a series of short stories. The group is back in Baldur's Gate and we get to see them dealing with their own challenges. This volume includes the highlight of the series in the story arc of Boo, the space hamster.

[Damian Herde]

I was disappointed with this volume. The art is fine, but the collection of single issue stories was unsatisfying. Each is very different, but it felt like filler or undoing inconvenient plot points introduced in earlier volumes.

[Antonio Jose]

Nice artwork and story

[John R]

These five issues were just plain FUN. They consisted of stand-alone stories that give you a little more insight into the characters. The Boo story was both cute AND clever.

[Ross Kitson]

A run of short stories set back in Baldurs Gate after the heroes' return from the North. Even Boo gets his own yarn. Not as satisfying as the prior three series, it's nonetheless good fun.

[O'Rety]

Bad artwork (each episode has a different artist and some are better than others, but it's not good in general (maybe they used this installment for testing...)), poor story.

[Jake Morrissey]

Loved the games. Love these comics. Hope they keep coming

[Catherine Morrison]

i like the more cohesive ones

[Mari]

Glorious!!!

[Caitlin]

This was definitely my least favorite of the bunch so far. The stories didn't flow at all together so it was a little disorienting, and I did not like the artist's style at all.

[Brandon]

Little one-off stories building off of our cast of characters, mostly cliche and not too exciting. Some good moments, I think my favourite was the Nerys story. But I was overall unimpressed.

[Josh]

This one definitely dropped in quality of both artwork and story. The artists kept changing and some were better than others, but the stories were overall quite simple.

[Notoftenbutalways]

Wish it was more connected but still i had a lot of fun reading it.

[Aurelie]

Not every issue is equal. This volume's last two issues definitely make it worth the read but, yes, it doesn't feel quite balanced. Shoutout to my boy Boo.

Is Boo even a boy?

[Lex Hobbs]

Many funny moments and the artwork is amazing

[Trevor]

This volume was just a collection of 5 stand-alone issues each centred on a different character. Boo's one was pretty cute.

[Robert]

An episodic collection, not bad, just not as good as the long-form stories.

[Mouse]

Really not that much to this one and unfortunately it was my first time reading about these characters so it was strange to see them on their own. I thought they were more of a team but instead they all ditched each other as soon as they got to town.
It had some fun action and comedy moments!