Reading – Warhammer: Condemned by Fire

A five issue mini-series, published by Boom Studios (website, Twitter) between April and September of 2008, Warhammer: Condemned by Fire (and also available as a collected trade*) is an enjoyable read with quite attractive artwork. It is unfortunate that Boom is no longer publishing Warhammer comics, because their work resulted in some fun comics and I would be happy to still be buying new Warhammer work from them today. But this isn’t the time to discuss lost licenses, so let’s move on and take a look at this comic mini-series.

Written by long-time Warhammer author Dan Abnett (Wikipedia with Ian Edginton, Warhammer: Condemned by Fire follows a Witch Hunter, Magnus Gault, as he first encounters, then follows, and the deals with a terrible evil. To be completely honest the pacing is a bit jarring and the shift in focus from the third issue to the fourth issue feels odd — the story changes from an above-ground adventure to an underground battle against the Skaven (Wikipedia) — but when looked at as a whole work the comic is fun. And fun is all that I want from my comics. This isn’t a masterpiece of artistic storytelling that will be studied for decades to come, but it is well-crafted and recommended to anyone who enjoys fantasy comics . . . and this includes those with no knowledge of the Warhammer universe; the comic is fairly well self-contained.

Witch Hunter?

I find it easiest to think of these guys from the Warhammer world as that world’s adaptation and recreation of Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane (search for Solomon Kane at Amazon.com*). The Witch Hunters fight evil, to put it simply, and are often illustrated in costumes that look a hell of a lot like what we usually see when Solomon Kane is presented in a comic or on a book cover. And I will be the first to admit that it is this connection to Kane that helps draw me to stories of Witch Hunter characters; I know it sounds stupid but it’s how my brain works.

A quick search online didn’t reveal any excellent summaries of the Witch Hunters in the game world but if you just think of them as Holy warriors who are scary as hell and always ready to slay evil then you won’t be too far off. That’s a simplistic description, but it’s good enough for our needs; and our only needs right now is enjoying this story.

Issues One through Three

The first two issues are illustrated by Rahsan Ekedal in a style that is mostly heavy line work with lots of blacks . . . and it looks gorgeous. In the first two issues we are introduced to Magnus Gault and watch as he battles twisted and unholy humans who have been turned to monsters, witness the death of warhounds, and follow as Gault follows a tainted river to a town that turns out to be corrupted by the evil he is tracking. The pacing on these first two issues is quite fast and you’re drawn into the story as it flows smoothly from scene to scene.

Issue three, illustrated by Ekedal and Chad Hardin, brings Greatsword Franz Vogel — last seen in Warhammer: Forge of War* — firmly into the story and presents the destruction of the evil minions of the town. This issue also moves quickly, but it almost moves too fast and there are a few spots in the story where the artwork is not perfectly clear on what has happened. Nothing that damages the fun of the comic, but I feel like this issue needed to be a few pages longer. I understand that’s not how comics work — printing costs and budgets force size restrictions — but the problem was noticeable to me and worth mentioning.

Issues Four and Five

With the town handled, Gault and Vogel return to following the evil river and, as I already mentioned, they soon find themselves underground fighting against Skaven. These are scary ratmen and issue four’s artist — Anthony Williams — does a decent job of mimicking Ekedal’s style while doing a great job illustrating the ratmen. This issue sees the return of another character from the Warhammer: Forge of War* book, Vargni Valnirsson, and this addition to the story really helps pull Boom’s first two Warhammer mini-series’ together. It’s minor, but I appreciate that when they launched into Condemned by Fire they didn’t just restart everything but instead used some of their previous work. Makes it feel more like a world . . . but you don’t need to have read anything to enjoy this story on its own.

Issue four closes with the revelation that the source of the evil that Gault has been following since issue one is a Warp Stone. Basically this is an evil rock that corrupts everything it touches; that’s a very simplified description but it’s good enough for enjoying the story and if you just have to know more then see Wikipedia. It’s a bit of a simple way to explain all of the evil that has been affecting normal citizens up to this point, but it’s a fitting description for the Warhammer world and I can’t be upset that the authors used a piece of the world background to build a simple story.

Issue five sees the return of Rahsan Ekedal as artist and concludes the story neatly and swiftly. Too swiftly, since again we wind up with almost too much story crammed into too small of a space. And a word balloon error on at least one panel — the text is attributed to the wrong character — hints that not only was the story rushed but also the production of the final issue was a bit rushed. There’s nothing here so devastating that it makes me scream “Run,” but the error (and possibly more than one, since the first I spotted makes a few following panels a little confusing) is there and worth noting. The story finished with the three heroes succeeding in destroying the Warp Stone, but we had to have expected that and I don’t think by mentioning this I’m ruining the fun in reading the comic.

Closing Thoughts

Warhammer: Condemned by Fire is only going to become more difficult to find at a decent price as time passes, so if you’re at all a fan of fantasy comic books I suggest you grab this soon. I personally prefer the individual issues to the collections — I dislike the comic collections that reduce the pages down to the 6″ x 9″ format — but for simple reading fun you can’t beat the price of the collections. (Well, as long as the prices stay low; as more years pass we’ll likely see the price on the collections increase to a point that it’s not worth it, but for the moment the prices are okay.)

It really isn’t the greatest comic that you will ever read, but Boom tends to do good work and in this comic they continued their tradition of good to great quality. A few bumps in the story, a word balloon error, and a change in artists for one issue are all annoying but do nothing to make me say anything except: Read this comic if you want to see evil destroyed. It’s simple. It’s fun. And it’s one of the reasons why I wish Boom was still publishing Warhammer comics.