World of Warcraft: Book One

World of Warcraft #1

by Walter Simonson

An amnesiac washes up on the shores of Kalimdor, starting the epic quest of the warrior Lo'Gosh, and his unlikely allies Broll Bearmantle and Valeera Sanguinar. Striking uneasy relationships with other races, as wellunlikely allies Broll Bearmantle and Valeera Sanguinar. Striking uneasy relationships with other races, as well as each other, they must fight both the Alliance and the Horde as they struggle to uncover the secrets of as each other, they must fight both the Alliance and the Horde as they struggle to uncover the secrets of Lo'Gosh's past! Collecting Wildstorm's World of Warcraft #0-7.

Genres: Fantasy, Warcraft, Comics, Graphic Novels, World Of Warcraft, Video Games, Fiction

200 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2008

About the author

Walt Simonson is an American comic book writer and artist, best known for a run on Marvel Comics' Thor from 1983 to 1987, during which he created the character Beta Ray Bill. He is also known for the creator-owned work Star Slammers, which he inaugurated in 1972 as a Rhode Island School of Design thesis. He has also worked on other Marvel titles such as X-Factor and Fantastic Four, on DC Comics books including Detective Comics, Manhunter, Metal Men and Orion, and on licensed properties such as Star Wars, Alien, Battlestar Galactica and Robocop vs. Terminator.

He is married to comics writer Louise Simonson, with whom he collaborated as penciller on X-Factor from 1988 to 1989, and with whom he made a cameo appearance in the 2011 Thor feature film.

Reviews

[Ham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Supposedly this was book one. I just found it at the library and gave it a shot. Overall I was pleased with the art, although the dipictions of battles were a little too subtle for me. Several of the frames I had to stare at to understand who was kicking who, or who's sword is going where. The plot was meandering but at times engaging. My three-year-old seemed to enjoy it, although I hope she doesn't get any ideas from all the skanky female outfits represented. "No Sweetie, you may not dress like an orc princess."

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up at the library because I love Warcraft. The art was gorgeous but the story was fairly uninteresting (team fighting in the arena at Dire Maul etc etc).

Still love seeing the names I am so used to from the game but the graphic novel format just isn't my thing in regards to Warcraft.

[*Layali* · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun and quick graphic novel.

I do play World of Warcraft, so it was really fun to see some of the lore behind significant characters that show up in game.

I'd like to continuing reading these when I need a break from the real world. :P

[David Holec · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ať si říká kdo chce co chce - bylo to skvělé. Od vynikajících kreseb, které hrály všemi barvami, až po zajímavý příběh, ve kterém jsou zmíněny nejrůznější události i z knih. Prostě paráda! Určitě si ale před čtením tohoto komiksu doporučuji přečíst i nějaké knihy. Bude vám to pak dávat větší smysl.

[Mohammad Al Ayoubi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend it, but the fight scenes are short and unsatisfying... giving the hero unrealistic strength.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun to read. My only complaint is how overtly sexualized the women are depicted. "I'm not a child!" says Valeera, as she's sitting spread-legged - seems squicky to me, even though scantily clad women are part of World of Warcraft. Not every woman character in the book has to be drawn with the same "idealized" body type in skimpy clothes, but they are. Thankfully, Blizzard has given Jaina a more battle-appropriate outfit in Heroes of the Storm since this book was published, so there's that!

[Jerry Jose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biased as a huge fan of the artwork, and the universe as a whole. Used to be my go to wallpaper, sketch material comic book. Total fun even for a re read.
Bourne Identity in Warcraft creed : Brotherhood

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is a little jumpy and the dialog is occasionally stunted but the art is gorgeous. It helps to know some of the Warcraft lore but it isn't required.

[Rime An-Elderin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome!!

[TheGeeksAttic · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun to read. Excellent art and entertaining story. It was full of adventure and had many surprises.

[Timothy Pitkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the art is not my favorite but the story is good and while it does surround some characters I am not to crazy about but this story does make me like them a lot more. While I already know the story and the future of Varian but seeing the tragedy of Varian and what he had to go through to get his identity back is pretty good. Broll's character is also pretty good as it is clever tying him into the Battle of Mt. Hyjal and giving him some tragedy. The only character I was not to crazy about is Valeera which is a shame since their are not to many good Blood Elf characters in the lore. But she just came off a bit too generic. Also I do love that they made this feel epic with them visiting many different places in Kalimdor and meeting various important Warcraft characters. While I was not to sure about the Warcraft comics this made me want to hunt down the others and see how the story will play out in comic form.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I checked this book out from the library as I recently started playing WOW, to get an idea of the world of the game beyond the Mysts of Panderia. The story is solid and interesting; the three main characters are likeable and I sympathized with them easily and wanted them to make it out of the various scrapes with Orcs and other creatures they encounter.Some of the battle scenes are a bit difficult to follow what's going on, but not in a realistic, confusion of battle sort of way. The dialogue is a bit blocky at the beginning and I'm not a fan of the modern comic book coloring and inking style the artwork is presented in, which to me makes the images look flat. But overall, a good read and I look forward to reading the next volumes.

[Soňa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Takže po dlhšej dobe sa mi opäť do rúk dostal comics a ktomu ešte Warcraft.

Čo sa mi pozdávalo? Kresba, lebo je živá, výrazná, prospievajúca deju i príbehu. Storka ako taká, keďže o Warcrafte viem akurát to, že je. Vďaka tomuto, teda už viem kúsok viac. Postavy sú dobre vykreslené, interakcia je rýchla a priama, dej sa nemotká ani neplazí, proste ak je akcia je akcia, ak je chvila pauzy, je jasné, že ďalšia strana bude akcia. A tak to má byť.

Čo mne osobne chýbalo, je viac prepojenia medzi miestami a postavami z histórie, ale to je preto, že proste tento svet nepoznám. Zaujímavé je, že preklady miest sú občas vysvetlené cez hviezdičku s originálnym názvom - ale tak to je zas vec prekladu, ja som za ponechávanie mien v originále, ale ta čo už.

A hľadám druhý diel, kto požičia?

[Slayermel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story, I always hear a lot of talk about the game World of Warcraft so it was nice to know a little more about it. I loved how the characters all got together and became a real team, that seems to be unbeatable. The outfits for the females are a bit scandalous but I guess that's to be expected with such a huge male following ;0p

I will definitely be looking for book 2 as I want to know if La'Gosh gets his memories all back and who is behind trying to destroy him. The fantasy elements in this story were great, the elf's, elementals, orc's the illustrations were fantastic.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good self-contained story which draws heavily on the computer game but without requiring the reader to know EVERYTHING about it. The set up is pretty standard fantasy stuff, but that's good because there is a lot of fun to be had with the characters - instead of worrying too much about the storyline.

The art is good - crisp and clear. I'd recommend this for comic fans as well as the fans of WOW.

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fast paced book giving some background lore to the World of Warcraft setting. It is centered on a trio of gladiators who are at least somewhat pivotal to the workings of the realms. I enjoyed it and thought it was a very quick read. Only drawbacks, there were some fight scene pictures that did not make that much sense at first glance, and it had a decent amount of scantily clad women running around in it so I would not recommend it for anyone too young.

[Lissibith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up because I enjoy reading about Varian. I find him a pretty fascinating character. And from that aspect I enjoyed it. I wish the Blood Elf had more to do. I had a hard time following the art sometimes, especially when we were in battle scenes. But overall? I got exactly what I wanted out of this comic and I'm looking forward to the next volume to get more. :)

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a casual player of the game for years but have never delved into the lore and deeper stories. I am planning to end my subscription to the game in a few months but will hopefully get into the books to keep myself connected to the world.

This graphic novel was a fairly fun afternoon read.

[John Adkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not bad but I had very high hopes for Walt Simonson based upon his amazing run on Thor.

[David Molnar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mediocre. This was made to support a product line, not because someone had a story to tell. The result is unbearably clunky.

Although my son loved it. Hopefully not because of the boobs.

[Anna Obertan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bylo to ok, ale na muj vkus prilis mnoho silikonovych prsou elfek. Proc nemuzou mit aspon jednou opravdovy funkcni brneni?

[Đenis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skvelá grafika, výborný fantasy príbeh, takto si predstavujem akčný komiks. A to nie som nejak verným fanúšikom WoW.

[laskavka · Rating 3 out of 5]

U pribehu jsem se vratila do detstvi a hrani WoW, takova hezka nostalgie v plnobarevnem komiksu. Jenom ta kresba mi obcas prisla neprehledna a pribeh jako takovy je silne predvidatelny...

[Darryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story. The art is sometimes too confusing to understand. And someone doesn't know what a manticore is.

[Kristi Drillien · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

An amnesiac human washes up on the shores of Durotar and is pressed into service as a gladiator. Forming a bond with two other gladiators, a Night Elf druid and a Blood Elf rogue, the human becomes known as Lo'gosh and the trio soon become champions. Escaping their enslavement, Lo'gosh, Broll and Valeera, set out to face their pasts and find their destinies.

To be fair, I am in no way invested in the Warcraft franchise; my experience with it extends to having enjoyed Warcraft 2 back in the day and having watched the terrible movie, but I have never played WoW (and have no intention of ever doing so).
So, I'm not a fan to begin with. However, I feel like Book One of a comic book series should be a reasonable access point for the uninitiated but the problem is that Simonson doesn't actually seem to be particularly invested either.

This could've been a deep-dive into Blizzard's lore-heavy fantasy world or, in fact, any one of a hundred different interesting stories based on how a character might play out in the RPG. Instead what we get is a string of clichés loosely tacked together and pushed along narratively by nothing more compelling than the general concept that the characters have to keep moving forward.
You could make the book more enjoyable by playing cliché bingo, I suppose: amnesiac hero who turns out to be someone very important, magic-user struggling with their magic because they're haunted by a mistake of the past, orphan trying to escape the stigma attached to their race, assassins sent by a mysterious antagonist... and so on and so forth.

All of this wasn't helped by the fact that I'm not a fan of the WoW aesthetic so, for me, the artwork looked horrible too (female characters showing enough flesh to be worried about hypothermia, for example).

In short, if you're not a WoW fan, this isn't the book to get you into the franchise. I can't help but feel that even if you are a WoW fan then this book still wouldn't be what you're looking for either.

* More reviews here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.page *

[Katja Grunwald]

World of Warcraft, Vol. 1" is a brilliant introduction to the rich and immersive world of Azeroth. This graphic novel captures the essence of what makes World of Warcraft such a beloved franchise. The storyline is engaging, blending action, mystery, and character development, all of which are beautifully complemented by the breathtaking illustrations that bring Azeroth to life. The book offers a fresh perspective on iconic locations and characters, making it a treat for both newcomers and seasoned veterans of the game.

What sets this book apart is how well it ties into the in-game experience. Fans who enjoy diving into WoW's complex lore will find themselves even more immersed in the universe after reading this. If you're someone who enjoys exploring Azeroth but wants to make the most out of your time in the game, WoW boosts (https://wowvendor.com/shop/wow/) can be a great companion to this book. By using boosts, you can unlock challenging raids, level up quickly, or gear up your character, allowing you to experience the parts of the game that align with the epic events and settings described in the graphic novel.

Whether you're reading this to deepen your appreciation of the game or simply to enjoy a high-quality fantasy story, "World of Warcraft, Vol. 1" is an excellent choice. It's a reminder of why World of Warcraft remains a cultural phenomenon after so many years.

[Azeban13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love World of Warcraft. I played the game for many years and it'll always have a place in my heart. That being said, this was my first introduction to the comics and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The art was great. I really enjoyed the style of it and the colors. More action/fight scenes would've been great but I'm not complaining. The story was enjoyable- essentially three misfits forced to fight together and later actually coming together as allies. It was a short read but held my interest and I was able to finish it very quickly. It's a lot better reading if you know the characters beforehand. I could see someone not enjoying the story and characters as much without any prior exposure/information about them.

I know a lot of people will be put off by Valeera's clothing. I know in the comic people referenced her as being a child, but she also mentioned that her people age differently and considering elves can live hundreds of years or more, I chalked it up to that. If an elf is 200 than by comparison Valeera would be "but a child". but I digress.

Overall, a short and fun read. I recommend!

[Viktória · Rating 2 out of 5]

Számomra sajnos nem a letehetetlen kategória ez a WoW képregény. Régebben játszottam a játékkal is, ezért több ismerős dolog is volt benne - ezek nélkül valószínűleg teljesen el lettem volna veszve.
A főszereplők szimpatikusak voltak, mindegyikük múltjából megtudunk valamit. Nem jött át, vagy nem maradt meg, mennyi ideje ismerhetik egymást, de tetszett, hogy 3 ennyire különböző személy mennyire összetart.
Kapkodtam a fejem egy-egy jelenet végén, mert nem éreztem őket lezártnak. A rajzok sem fogtak meg.
Időnként zavaró volt az is, hogy mindent lefordítottak magyarra, és csak a könyv végére lapozgatva lehetett rájönni, mire is gondolt a fordító. Valószínűleg ez csak nekem probléma.
Ez az A/4-es méret pedig....

[Felicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

My husband and our friends play WOW and have gotten me to try a few times. I figured that maybe if I learned about WOW lore that playing wouldn't be so hard. I know there are novels that I could have tried but I find graphic novels to be easier and quicker reads that are jam packed with info on less pages. The graphics in book one are absolutely beautiful! Can't wait to get started on book two.