Dragon Age: Dark Fortress #2

Dragon Age: Dark Fortress #2

Dark Horse Comics 2021

Written by Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir

Illustrated by Fernando Heinz

Background Inks by Sebastian Heinz

Special Thanks to Rocio Zucchi

Coloured by Michael Atiyeh

Lettered by Mate Piekos of Blambot

The deadly elven warrior Fenris and a team of the Inquisition's best race to keep the Venatori from unleashing a power that will reshape Thedas in this canonical continuation of BioWare's dark fantasy RPG! Will they be fast enough to outrun their own pasts and stop what's coming? The continuation of Dragon Age: Blue Wraith!

God this is a good book. There is something about this that really appeals to me in terms of both storytelling as well as the cast of characters that we see. I know this is based off of a video game but in all honesty as someone who doesn’t game I think this is incredibly successful as a comic book series. I know it can work as a bridge between the game and the series with people who generally play or read one and segway into the other but I am quite content with simply reading this book. It amazes me how similar a book like this is akin to many superhero books that are on the market today and that most folks don’t tend to realise that.

I am loving the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see is extraordinary and it ties into the story development sensationally well. How the two are so closely related to one another and to see how what they are going through affects how they react is beyond what I could have expected to see. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story and the plans that we see in motion from all sides really make what we’re seeing that much more impressive to me.

I like how we are seeing this being structured. How the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen while taking on new shapes and avenues is what makes this unpredictable and exciting to me. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is executed and achieved extremely well.

God the interiors here are bloody brilliant. The linework is beyond exquisite and to see the varying weights and techniques that are being utilised to create this level and quality of detail work is astounding. With this kind of creativity and imagination we see alongside with the level of work we’re seeing it boggles the mind, ignites the readers own creativity and imagination. The way that we see backgrounds being utilised not only enhance the moments but they also bring us this great depth perception, sense of scale and this overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably brilliant eye for storytelling. The colour work is heavenly. How the various hues and tones within the colours are being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is mindbogglingly gorgeous stuff.

Just when you think that things are going to be okay and that the good guys will arrive in time welp we’d be wrong. That’s another aspect of this that I am absolutely loving about this series is that while there are good stopping places the arcs are able to keep continuing one after the other much like you’d see in some kind of night time soap opera. It isn’t just that either because if i’m going to be honest each adventure plays off the last and yet they continue on to keep their world safe from threat after threat. I would be content if this group of adventurers would simply continue to have their stories told month after month.

Very few series are able to create this kind of magnificent level of storytelling and to be honest this is the kind of stuff we want to be reading.