the Warlord #14 - DC

Well . . no sooner does Joshua take on the mantle of his father than . . he's thrown right into battle. And it could be that the entirety of Skartaris rests in his hands. Not too much to throw at a young pup on his first trip out. Anyways, there's reports of a dragon in the outer lands that is terrorizing the people. Joshua and company arrive just in time to find that they're even offering it sacrifices to try to stay it's hand. Anyways, Joshua decides to face it head on, but soon runs away with his tail between his legs. Well, actually . . it's his hand. During the heat of battle the fiery breath of the dragon nearly burns his hand to cinder. But there's a couple of things at play here. First of all . . when this happens with Joshua, Tara's baby begins to . . well, er . . act up. Jennifer quickly comes to her side, but she finds out that Tara's little baby girl is full of power. And she seems to be sensing her brother's distress. Later we see that the baby is using her powers to help him heal. Secondly, after having a special sword forged from the metallic meteorite, as well as a gauntlet and shield, Joshua and company have to once again go and face the creature as one of the townspeople have offered Alysha as a sacrifice, after there's was interrupted. So now, even though they're not ready, they have to go and try to save Alysha. I don't know if they come if from a different entrance this time, or what, but . . when they enter the cave they can tell that this is actually a ship. And when they get a better look at the dragon, they find out that it's actually an alien. With some kind of laser device mounted to it's forehead. Joshua ends up seriously hurting it, but before it dies it sends off a message to Orion. And he talks about these people being some kid of accidental experiment. It seems to have originated from something they left here eons ago. Anyways, it seems that Mike Grell is mixing a little science fiction in with his usual sword and sorcery here. We've seen Skartaris affected before by the outside world. But I don't know that they've ever been affected by something from outside the universe. It'll be interesting to see how this all comes out, and if it has anything to do with the recent revelation of Shamballah being part of the city of Atlantis. And if that's so . . I'm surprised that we haven't seen Orion here before. The mage . . not the constellation. I thought it was an interesting book. It's a little hard to tell right now though because this is just the opening salvo of this story-arc. But I am excited to see that the book is still going strong. Chad Hardin and Wayne Faucher are doing the art now. It's . . ok. It's going to be hard to hold a candle to Mike's work. But . . change is ok. You just have to accept it.