Revisiting Early Days Of Iconic Characters — Reviewing ‘Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins Series I’ #1

Welcome to the table,

A long, long … time ago, I was on the phone with one of my players plotting our her new character for an upcoming campaign I was planning on running. The conversation turned from cat folk and returning moon shaped throwing darts to actual play shows. While she was very much in the mind set that these sorts of things were amazing and worthy of watching, I had checked out a few episodes and was not totally hooked by what I had seen.

The players were very talented, the storyteller was brilliant and charming, and the vibe of the table was able to stratal that line between actually playing Dungeons & Dragons and serving as a show that those at home who did not play on the regular did not get lost in. It was wonderful and fun, but I just was not connecting they way everyone else was, until she said something to the effect of “Go to the Halloween episode, start there, just … let it play.”

As a good Storyteller, I listen to my players and am eternal grateful I did in this case. Doing so means that I get to enjoy these fantastic Critical Role comics even more, having been able to sit back and enjoy all the episodes over, and over, and over again. Let’s get into it!

Critical Role is one of those generation-defining brands that grew from the home-game table run by Matthew Mercer to a massive pop culture tree, with branches that now stretch like Yggdrasil across the fandom universe.

One of the newest branches to sprout from that ever growing tree to celebrate 10 years of Critical Role is Dark Horse Comics’ Vox Machina Origins I seeing print for the first time. This offering is written by Matthew Mercer and Matthew Colville and illustrated by Olivia Samson, with colors and letters from Chris Northrop and additional color assistance from Travis Ames.

Vox Machina Origins I was digitally published all the way back in 2019. Now the individual issues are hitting stands in print form for the first time with issue #1 seeing a fresh cover design by series artist Samson.

What is fun about this series is the way it takes me back to the even earlier days of these now iconic characters, as they start to pull together the adventuring party we would come to know as Vox Machina.

The plot is pretty fun, focusing on the twins, Vax’ildan and Vex’ahlia as they investigate a curse afflicting the impoverished citizens of the port city of Stilben. We get some cool shark riding fish-folk and the introduction of the druid Keyleth to the mix before the first issue comes to a close.

I got caught up in a wave of nostalgia. These days, a week can feel like a month. These familiar faces all fresh and new to the table resonated with me from these old stories in a way I did not know I was missing.

Fans of Critical Role are going to want to add these to their collection. Fans of Sword & Sorcery will more than likely enjoy the cut throat chaos and weird magic and mysteries that this party gets into. Fans of fun storytelling and rad art are not going to be left wanting if they decided to grab this story in print form. All in all, this is a solid offering from Dark Horse and the Critical Role team and while it treads ground some of us have seen before in digital form it’s worth a read as sometimes familiar stories are good to drown out current woes.

Until next time, long may he reign. What? Did you think I was going to say ‘Dagger, Dagger, Dagger? I know what I’m about!’