Skye Runner #1

Writer: Allen Warner
Penciller: Ale Garza
Inker: Richard Friend
Colorist: Jim Charalampidis


All Skye wants is to be a great knight, just like her father was. The only problem is, Skye’s a girl and girls aren’t allowed to be knights. But that doesn’t stop her from dressing and acting like a warrior. Or from defending her tiny kingdom when ancient and evil gods come calling.

From the guys that brought you Ninja Boy comes Skye Runner, one of the first books in a whole new line of fantasy-based comics offered by Wildstorm. Hey, why not? With the success of books like Conan and Red Sonja, everyone’s jumping on the sword and sorcery bandwagon. Then again Skye Runner seems to be more inspired by Final Fantasy than Conan the Barbarian. It’s certainly packed with a gathering of characters that seem ready-made for their own role-playing video game adventure.

In fact, that’s what this issue feels like; someone’s
Dungeons and Dragons role-playing adventure that they decided would make a great comic book. I’m not saying it’s terrible or anything, but it’s definitely got its fair share of
fantasy story cliché’s. And boy is it needlessly wordy. This book likes to talk! And for all the exposition some of the character’s backgrounds and relationships are still a bit confusing at points.

So fine, it may not be the most complex or thought provoking comic. It may be overly wordy and a bit cliché. But Skye Runner is certainly one of the prettiest looking books I’ve read this year. Ale Garza really pulls out all the stops here and brings some of the best artwork of his career. It remains to be seen whether Garza can maintain a regular schedule on the book. Whenever they come out I know I’ll be picking up at least a couple more issues for the artwork alone!

Special thanks go out to Jeremy Shorr, owner of Titan Comics for allowing us to use his advance preview books for review purposes.

Comic Review Index