Our story continues with Julia and her daughters, Gina and Britanny, feasting on a breakfast supplied by the keeper of the inn where they stayed. It's the morning after the rescue from Rook's castle (there's a joke in there...), still on Jade. A handsome warrior comes up to the ladies and declares the table as his. Julia handles the threat while the girls are hormonally entranced, but it turns out that the warrior is Garfield, one of Julia's first students while she taught as an arms-master.
The sisters begin to flirt with him, with Brit changing forms no less, when Garfield also proves that he's a werecat by changing. This rattles Brit a bit, since she's never seen another werecat, let alone one so handsome, so she steps outside with Julia quick on her heels. Britanny tells her mother about her physical attraction to Gar (remember, her heart still belongs to Stripe), and reveals her feelings of vengeance towards the evil werewolf, Brendan, who killed off her entire clan along with her real mother. Julia tries to comfort Brit, but instead lets her run off to exact revenge against him.
Meanwhile in subplot "A", (as we see how the corporate ways of handling the undead realms is done), Natasha, Queen of the Vampires, reasons out why the Lich King is making such an elaborate plan with Brendan involved, and not doing evil stuff directly. She understands that maybe the Lich King can't take out every opponent...
Brendan arrives at the location the Lich King sent him to: the Temple of the Obelisk. Luckily, he is ambushed by his son, Sander, and Thabian, husband to the leader of the werewolves (Jetta). Sander and Thabian dish out some justice, but accidentally return Brendan's book of magic to him, thus giving him enough power to take them both out. Britanny stops his killing blow, however, by entering and snatching his magic book away from him. Brendan recognizes her and gives her the knowledge she seeks from him before she kills him (or he kills her): why did the werecheetahs have to die?
History lesson. Brendan tells her that there are THREE werecreatures on Earth, the third being the wererats. The wererats had an innate fear of the werecats, so the wererats' seer sought out Brendan to destroy the werecats in exchange for immense power. Since the werewolves and werecheetahs were ending a war, Brendan tricked them back into it again. This time though, he'd tip the scales with the power he'd gained. And he did.
Britanny realizes that he's trying to get his magic book back, so she rips it. A magical explosion blows them back, and she feigns helplessness to get him in position, then goes to town on him. Relentlessly. With her final blow, she cripples him and sends him flying. Unfortunately, it's into the obelisk. A surge of power occurs, and he creates a shield around himself.
Elsewhere in subplot "B", Julia tries to help out Gina with the construction of a 'machine' (a vehicle of some kind). Dr. Diggers teleports in from Earth with Brianna packing major heat, Genn in its masculine form, and Mesha and Tark as well. When they try to teleport to Britanny for help, they realize that none of their magic is working. (Genn's innate shapeshifting still works.)
Britanny, uselessly squaring off against Brendan's shield, hears his maniacal laughter from behind it. She chooses to retreat, but Brendan has other ideas. He snags the fleeing werecheetah in a force bubble, and ponders how the best method of her demise would be.
Back to subplot "A", Natasha explains to Vlad how the obelisk is so powerful that it drains all of the magic from Jade for a twenty-four hour period. This will give him enough time to take out the Diggers family and friends, and use Gina in an experiment that she won't be happy with. Just as this is explained, Vlad and Natasha get busted by the Lich King's crew for treason and they get demoted to washroom duty.
Fairly big review, huh? Chronologically, I don't do these in order, and this is the first review I've done in about two months. I'm outta shape. Sorry.
Now then. The characters in this issue are fleshed out a bit more, but the way that they're drawn detracts from that. At one point, the artwork became so similar that I couldn't tell (briefly) who was holding the book of magic: Brendan or Sander. Something was off here, and my senses point towards the rushed feel of a comic quickly made.
The cover doesn't explain much inside either.
Plotwise, Mr. Perry gave this series a lot of thought, and it's interesting enough to want to learn what comes next. A great knowledge of D&D magic along with his own creation of the werecreatures' histories makes this comic an enjoyable read. Plus, the interaction with the three ladies at the beginning is realistic, at least for this fictional world. All-in-all a good comic to have, if only for the relevant parts of the Lich-King Saga as well as the introduction of the wererats and Garfield, too.
(out of four.)
"...More than meets the eye." - The slogan of the "Transformers", (she transforms, see?)
Genn's Cat-form - Felicia from the video game "Darkstalkers"
"I have the power", He-Man - a quote from Mattel's action figure, He-Man
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