I’ve Waited More Than Half My Life For This: Reviewing ‘Battle Chasers’ #11

Welcome to the table,

NOTE TO THE READER: I’m going to be 100% raw and unchecked in this review. This is a warning. I’m going to use salty language and be totally transparent with you. I want to warn you, because you may not care about this rambling journey I’m going to take you on, and that is totally okay. I have a lot of feelings and thoughts about Battle Chasers, because I have waited more than half my life for this issue to come out.

I’ve read Battle Chasers #11. I know secrets I feel like I should not know before most other people get a chance to know them. I have forbidden knowledge of things I can’t unlearn, about a series I have loved since its launch in my childhood.

For those of you who have missed out on my deep-rooted love for all things Battle Chasers, please check out this review of Battle Chasers Collected Editon. You can then catch up to the current books with my review of Battle Chasers #10 here.

 

This issue answers questions.

 

This issue also creates more questions. I’m not going to spoil anything for you, because if you have been waiting for 20+ years like I have, I can’t take this from you. Even if you are a crap person who does not refill ice cube trays, spits your gum out on the sidewalk, or does not take your shopping cart back. If you have been waiting this long for this, you deserve to enjoy it.

 

 

I’m not going to tell you what happens in this issue. I will tell you what I can without giving anything else away.

 

This issue is cover to cover ad-free. There is not a single moment wasted on the page. The art is chilling and beautiful. The attention to lighting and visual storytelling is nothing short of spectacular.  There are no Gully, ‘Bretto, or Knolan appearances in this issue. There are four pages of  Red Monika and three pages of another character I won’t spoil but they are the first three pages so you won’t have to wait long.

 

The rest of this issue is focused on Garrison and Garrison’s sword.

 

I love Battle Chasers in a way that I would be one of those people who makes a part of their house themed around the thing they are a fan of. I would have a Battle Chasers wall with shelves and lots of Battle Chasers stuff if there were actual merch out there I could purchase.

I have only ever come across unofficial stickers and shirts I won’t buy because it’s stealing from creators. One time I saw a $1,500 statue I could not afford because I was still working my way through school and no matter how I did the math, I could not make it happen. I’m not kidding. I would put up shelves with figures and mugs and models if they were out there to be had. I don’t like fake swords and I would buy a replica of Garrison’s sword or Knolan’s staff and hang it on my wall proudly but these things are not out here to be had.

I’m telling you all of this to let you know that I, of all people, am going to be the most decerning and ready to rip this series apart if this payoff is not worth it person you will ever meet.

 

I’ve waited more than half my life for this fucking book to come out. 

 

I actually got a little overwhelmed when it hit my desk because it’s this thing I have built up in my mind. The thing I’m so excited about and it’s finally here. What if it doesn’t pay off, you know? What if I’m disappointed or it turns out like LOST or this payoff is like “It was really the friends we made along the way.”

 

What if I’m disappointed and I have to know for the rest of all time that this thing I’ve waited so long for is just underwhelming?

 

That’s a hell of a lot of pressure for me, a fan, a journalist, and an adult who has, until recently, spent the last ten years being disappointed by the comic industry, to put on a comic book and the people who make it. Joe Madureira is trying his best to tell the story he created his way. The artist Ludo Lullabi is now drawing characters that Joe created and made so iconic all those years ago. Richard Starkings and Comicraft’s Tyler Smith are along on this journey, doing their best to letter the hell out of this book for Image Comics.

And here I am self-burdened with the expectation that this moment I have built up in my mind is going to somehow rise to meet this lofty bar I have set for a collection of words and art organized on pages and stapled together to entertain. I mean, it’s a story about magic swords and high-fantasy golems and a kid with titan-strength gloves. It’s not that deep.

Yet here I am, caring about it like it’s going to fill the cup. Like it’s going to be some moment where the skies part and the villain who has cast the world into sadness and disappointment and painted the land in grays and gloom is pushed back by hope and joy. That’s the point, right? These are stories that are made to delight us. To remind us of what we could be. What we should be. The best parts of us are reflected back from the heroes on the page.

Art is supposed to make you feel things and fill you with wonder and make you think. Entertainment is our escape from the world of gloom. It’s our allegorical stories that remind us of lessons we may forget or that may get lost along the way when we are suffering from surgeries for disabilities that are slowly stripping away our abilities to do things.

They are the tools for us to escape the empty hours when our thoughts race too loud and the anxiety kicks in drowning us in memories of all the things we try and forget. If the feeling that art should matter is actually true and not just some empty platitude we put out there to try and justify spending cover price on a collection of pages, then there has to be some meaning taken from this work right? Somewhere under all of it these stories, this art form, this thing we call Comic Books has to mean something right?

 

So here we go. Here are my thoughts on this issue of Battle Chasers.

I’ve waited more than half my life for this issue. I’ve survived multiple surgeries, car crashes, breakups, and pandemics to get here. I can’t even tell you what happens in this issue, because I want you to be able to enjoy it for yourself without being spoiled. What I can tell you is that when I finished reading it I was reminded why a little kid who was beaten and bullied huddled in the back gaming room of a comic shop was so excited to read this series. I am a product of high fantasy nerd culture.

I live and breathe D&D and TTRPG. I love anime, and sword and sorcery, and fantasy novels and comics. Battle Chasers inspired me in a way nothing else up to that point had. It felt like I had finally been given a version of the Sword and Sorcery genre that was made just for me. It filled me with awe and wonder. It showed me that someone out there could transform the space into something new and it would still be viable and have all the things that I loved about it before but also all these new things that elevated it to something truly special. That you could love Conan and Elric and Raistlin but also be into something that felt punk and flashy and wild.

Battle Chasers inspired a weird little disabled punk kid, who was struggling to find his place in a world where things like him did not have a place, to forge his own path and with all that weight… with that monolithic expectation, I hung on this comic… I closed this issue and was not disappointed.

 

I don’t know what happens next.

 

I don’t know if I will live long enough to see all the story threads answered. Who knows? I am a Games Director. Maybe one day I will help Joe turn this world he has conjured up into a TTRPG setting so other weird little punk kids trying to find their way can explore this world and add to it with their own homebrew creations, while making memories with their weird little punk friends.

 

I have poured my heart out in this article and told you next to nothing about the issue and I think that’s okay. Because I’ve waited more than half my life for this issue of Battle Chasers and I’m not disappointed. 

 

Until next time, I hope you find things that excite you, and something, even if it’s small and seems to be “meaningless” brings you joy this week.