I think the thing, for better and worse, is that they chose Walt Simonson to write this comic.

He's a product of the 70s and while his mythological knowledge and love for classical fantasy tropes is there, he doesn't necessarily mesh well with Warcraft, even though Metzen is a big fan and Simonson's Thor comic book run, which has some precursors to steampunk in it and a mix of high adventure and humor, is obviously a big influence on Metzen's Warcraft.

The result is that Warcraft feels a little too reverent, a little too fantasy based, a little too fairy tale.

And, honestly, if I were to place Simonson on a Warcraft project, it would be one focussed on the Vrykul. The norse-inspired stuff shines under Simonson and I feel like someone told him to play down the kind of humor he used to do in Fantastic Four.

Off the top of my head, they should consider making these projects shorter (six-issues tops) and amping up the FUN content a little, focusing on story rather than straight lore.

Joe Kelly could do an engaging story about an engineer. He has a steampunk sensibility and his writing would mesh well with a very animated art style and the Gnomes and Goblins. It would be worth it for the anarchronism alone -- and it isn't Warcraft without some modern speech and anachronism worked in.

And while it's a pipe dream, Neil Gaiman would be well-suited to the quasi-Japanese, quasi-Elizabethan, quasi-amazon Night Elves. The elves and the Emerald Dream could practically function as an extension of his Sandman.

Somebody should hand Jeph Loeb a big book of crazy trinkets and quest lines like the Orb of Deception and the Caverns of Time and let him and Ed McGuinness spend six issues breaking the lore (and the universe) with Rhonin and Saurfang.

Mark Millar could probably do something engaging with Varien and Thrall, since his sensibilities blend together war and national security concerns. He's able to instill war-mongering tyrants with a bit of majesty.

Geoff Johns is a perfect fir for Illidan's biography. He grasps the idea of the angry outsider as anti-hero quite well and is a trivia nerd capable of absorbing the lore.

Grant Morrison belongs on a project involving the Titans and the Burning Legion, probably interspliced with a modern story centering around a five man party present day.

Simonson is best suited to the Vrykul and the origins of humanity.

Judd Winick seems like the guy to handle the Blood Elves in all their seedy majesty. Sure, his women are trampy, his characters are uber trendy, his characters alternate between borderline gay jokes and lectures against the evils of homophobia... But that sounds like a Blood Elf comic to me.

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