The official WoW website has put up a preview for issue 16 of the World of Warcraft comic. I have to say, this one doesn't look nearly as facepalm inducing as the last few. In fact, aside from a few art oddities (did Valeera just trip up there?), it looks like a pretty good start for this arc.

It looks like this arc is not only focused on Garona's half human, quarter orc, quarter draenei son, but a few other things, too. It looks like this arc will focus somewhat on Fandral Staghelm and the state of Teldrassil, what's happened to Ahn'qiraj since we were there last and potentially the relationship between King Varian and Valeera. To avoid spoilers, I'll stick a few more things behind the cut below.

It seems that C'Thun is actually dead dead, and we didn't just poke his eyeball with a sharp stick. I guess the Titans couldn't fit in his stomach.. Luckily, us adventurers are tiny and tasty. That raises a question though... what will happen down there when the corpse rots away? Part of it is still visible in the comic, and according to the Halls of Stone, killing the Old Gods entirely would be a Really Bad Thing (tm). Will Kalimdor collapse when C'Thun starts to rot away, or are we ignoring that tidbit for gameplay convenience? Or maybe the Titans convinced themselves killing the Old Gods would be catastrophic, because they couldn't figure out how to do it...

We also see the return of Cho'gall, one of the few intelligent ogres in Warcraft lore. Cho'gall was more or less the right hand of Gul'dan for a very long time, and while he was presumed dead for awhile, it seems he only faked his death to escape and fight another day. It'll be interesting to see if the Twilight's Hammer gets a real, true villain role in the future, rather than being silly cultists we smash en masse when we're bored. It'll be very, very interesting if we need to make a return trip to Ahn'qiraj one day to stop Cho'gall's machinations, if he isn't defeated in the comic itself.

Overall, I think this arc very much hints to the Maelstrom and the Emerald Dream as the next expansion if it follows the trend of the last arc, playing into the game as it was all resolved.

Tags: ahnqiraj, anduin-wrynn, broll, chogall, cthun, fandral-staghelm, garona, garona-halforcen, old-gods, staghelm, titans, twilights-hammer, valeera, valeera-sanguinar, varian-wrynn, world-of-warcraft-comic, wow-comic, yogg-saron

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Lore, Comics