Reviews and Comments

This was my first time reading a Blake & Mortimer comic book. I was quite surprised at how mature it is despite having really gorgeous art of a style reminiscent of Tintin.

The story revolves around a promise that 5 lords made in the past that comes back to kill them one by one as someone seeks revenge. Blake is personally involved in this story despite not being actively followed from the beginning of the book. The murderer(s) are in fact seen frequently, but the authors throw enough red herrings to keep the plot interesting and provide some unexpected twists along the way. Some parts of the plot could have benefited from more development however, as it is quite difficult to believe the motivations of the murderer(s), willingly acting as proxies for the revenge of someone they never knew.

One drawback is that Blake who is quite central to the plot is not a very fleshed out character. His past is explored but he is retains a blandness to his personality, probably so readers can keep identifying with him as one of the titular characters. It may have been a smarter choice to focus the entire plot onto Mortimer so Blake could benefit from more development through the eyes of his friend and have more flaws in his character. He may have been a suspect that way for example.

I was surprised to see that there are some pretty wordy passages where the drawings are basically just someone sitting down and speaking out a wall of text. That was a little off-putting and may lose the interest of younger readers.

Overall, I found this comic very enjoyable and well made. It was very engaging and became difficult to put down once it had me engaged in its whodunit plot.

This book is the start of the Heritage tetralogy and is therefore used to setup the world and plot points for the next three books. This results in the beginning feeling a bit slow whilst Brooks puts everything in place to take you through that long journey. The midpoint of the book is the encounter with Allanon's shade and the story starts to pick up speed a few chapters before then as there's a ramp up in action and narrative until that meeting. Once that takes place, the author manages a good flow all the way to the end of the book. So don't get discouraged and stick around until then.

The story features more mature themes than the previous series, helped by some of the protagonists being older and the world in general being much more broken. This gives us heroes that have more faults and more issues to overcome and that's a good thing. Even though the world is still very familiar and there is not much new as far as what the main characters need to do in this story, Brooks still manages to keep it fresh and introduce new challenges and new ways for the characters to overcome their difficulties. We finally get a better glance into the magic system and what the druids are about thanks to a more mature and magically able protagonist and this develops Brook's world quite a bit.

Overall I found this book enjoyable and would recommend it for anyone who also enjoyed the Sword of Shannara trilogy.